This is my first Mothers' Day on this side of the trenches. Sure, last year I had a little person inside me, so we half celebrated it as my first "unofficial" Mothers' Day, but this year it's for real. I gave birth to an actual baby and kept it alive and happy. So now I feel like I can really take part in this day.
But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge how being a mother has given me such a newfound sense of respect and admiration for the mothers already in my life.
First and foremost, my own mother! I see now how much she loves me. I joyfully watch my son play and discover new things and feel my heart swell so much I expect it to burst, and I imagine my mom experiencing that sensation as she watched tiny little me grow up. I fight the heartache that comes whenever my little man cries, and I think of the years my mom had to endure my tears as I learned about disappointment and the mean-spiritedness of others. I fall asleep snuggling my son and I think of all the nights I spent snuggled up to my own mama. Then I pout when he wakes up and wants to wriggle away from me and go play, and I inwardly apologize to my mother for my teenage years when I thought snuggling was weird. I groggily stand bouncing a sick baby in the middle of the night because he only wants to be held upright, and I think of my mother's cool hand on my warm forehead all the times I was sick, wondering at how tired she must have been. I kiss his tiny little toes, knowing someday they will be giant, sweaty, hairy man-feet, and imagine that there was a day when my toes were tiny enough for my mom to kiss. And I sing him the same lullabies I have such fond memories of my mom singing to me, hoping he will someday look back and realize how impossibly much I loved him.
I love him so impossibly much now, and I always will. I think that no one can ever love him as much as I do, and then I realize there will come a day when someone THINKS they do. Someone will steal my little love's heart away from me and will have it in her head that she loves him more than anyone. I know this, because I have been that person. When I met this little boy's Daddy. I do love him so much that it sometimes hurts, but now I understand that this is only a fraction of how much his mother loved him first. He was once a tiny baby like the one I'm holding, and there is a woman who held him and marveled at how anyone could possibly love anyone else so much. Who looked at him in amazement that he was half her and that she was his whole world. She raised a kind, generous, funny, hard-working, smart man who I try every day to be worthy of. I hope that I can do as wonderful a job raising my son as she did raising hers, and I acknowledge how hard it must have been for her to let me have him. Someday I will have no choice but to let some other woman (or man, who knows!) have my son's heart and a piece of mine will break off and go with him wherever he ends up.
So thank you both for blazing this trail of motherhood for me. Although it often feels like I must be the first person to ever have these feelings and experiences, I know that I am not, and that I have very large shoes to fill.
Happy Mothers' Day, everyone. Give your mom a hug today, or call her if you can't. Trust me, she misses you.
But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge how being a mother has given me such a newfound sense of respect and admiration for the mothers already in my life.
First and foremost, my own mother! I see now how much she loves me. I joyfully watch my son play and discover new things and feel my heart swell so much I expect it to burst, and I imagine my mom experiencing that sensation as she watched tiny little me grow up. I fight the heartache that comes whenever my little man cries, and I think of the years my mom had to endure my tears as I learned about disappointment and the mean-spiritedness of others. I fall asleep snuggling my son and I think of all the nights I spent snuggled up to my own mama. Then I pout when he wakes up and wants to wriggle away from me and go play, and I inwardly apologize to my mother for my teenage years when I thought snuggling was weird. I groggily stand bouncing a sick baby in the middle of the night because he only wants to be held upright, and I think of my mother's cool hand on my warm forehead all the times I was sick, wondering at how tired she must have been. I kiss his tiny little toes, knowing someday they will be giant, sweaty, hairy man-feet, and imagine that there was a day when my toes were tiny enough for my mom to kiss. And I sing him the same lullabies I have such fond memories of my mom singing to me, hoping he will someday look back and realize how impossibly much I loved him.
I love him so impossibly much now, and I always will. I think that no one can ever love him as much as I do, and then I realize there will come a day when someone THINKS they do. Someone will steal my little love's heart away from me and will have it in her head that she loves him more than anyone. I know this, because I have been that person. When I met this little boy's Daddy. I do love him so much that it sometimes hurts, but now I understand that this is only a fraction of how much his mother loved him first. He was once a tiny baby like the one I'm holding, and there is a woman who held him and marveled at how anyone could possibly love anyone else so much. Who looked at him in amazement that he was half her and that she was his whole world. She raised a kind, generous, funny, hard-working, smart man who I try every day to be worthy of. I hope that I can do as wonderful a job raising my son as she did raising hers, and I acknowledge how hard it must have been for her to let me have him. Someday I will have no choice but to let some other woman (or man, who knows!) have my son's heart and a piece of mine will break off and go with him wherever he ends up.
So thank you both for blazing this trail of motherhood for me. Although it often feels like I must be the first person to ever have these feelings and experiences, I know that I am not, and that I have very large shoes to fill.
Happy Mothers' Day, everyone. Give your mom a hug today, or call her if you can't. Trust me, she misses you.
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