Mother's day reflections

In absence of pictures of my precious little one, I want to take the time to share my first Mother's day experience(s) with you.

KR and I traveled to Indianapolis to attend my cousin's medical school graduation and, what a treat. ASM and I are 3 months apart and until this past weekend, I have never been able to attend one of her graduations because I was always graduating at the same time...well, that's not exactly true, we did graduate from preschool together in N.O. at Bocage Academy, along with my other cousin who is 8 months younger than me. Anyway, I was so excited finally to be able to honor and celebrate with her on this amazing accomplishment.

The greatest thing about this weekend was that it allowed four generations of women to celebrate Mother's day together. I have a large family and not everyone was able to attend, but my grandmother, 3 aunts and my mother, two cousins and me, and my baby girl were all in attendance (along with my brother and uncle and new cousin-in-law).
I will attach pictures of the weekend when I can figure out how to extract them from the internal memory of my digital vortex of a camera.

OK, on to Mother's day. I must say that it was an amazing day. I woke up to the sound of my heart (KR, not my real heart) lightly snoring and the vision of her smiling her crooked sleepytime smile. Be still my heart (the real one this time). I don't know that I have ever expressed the magnitude of my feelings for my first born. There is a distinct feeling that overcomes me when I see her smile and lift her arms for me to pick her up, or when I smell her breath when she opens her mouth in a huge yawn, or when she lays her head on my sholder and nuzzles her face into the crook of my neck. The same feeling is there when I am nursing her and she reaches her free hand up to squeeze my nose or slap me in the face or play with the necklace that I wear every day. I feel it again at night post 3:30am feeding when she joins me in bed and pushes her feet up against my tummy or drapes her long lanky legs across mine...she sleeps exactly the way I did as a child. The closest I can come to explaining this mom-love is this: You know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach and your throat right before you launch into a good sob fest? Or the feeling in your tummy right before stepping onto the biggest roller coaster ride you can handle? Or that internal feeling when you first kissed your true love? It's something like that. It's actually a dizzying, wholly consuming love that I could never have imagined feeling.

The only difference is that the butterflies of first loves eventually fade into a more serious committed love feeling and the roller coaster ride and the tears inevitably end. However, the mom-love will never, ever, ever, ever, ever stop or even come close to wearing off.
My daugher (by way of my mom) gave me a white t-shirt for Mother's day that is splashed with handprints in primary colors and text that reads: "Best Mom, Hands Down"...It's not actually KR's handprint, and I know that she didn't actually pick out the shirt for me, but the nature of the compliment that the shirt offers is "hands down" the most awesome compliment I will ever receive. Call me beautiful and I'll say "Thanks, that's sweet", but call me a good mom and I might actually bake you a cake!

I am so incredibly grateful to have been chosen to nurture, care for, and raise this beautiful blessing from God. To say that I love her with all my heart is the understatement of the century. To say that I love her with every fiber of my being sounds trite, but it's the best my current vocabulary will allow. Not only was this my first Mother's day as a true birth-mom, but this was the first time in my life that I could understand how my mom could be so excited by a macaroni card!

Oh, and guess what else happened on Mother's day? KR knows how to give kisses now...granted, they are incredibly sloppy and wet, but they are hers. We were playing with toys and books on the floor before breakfast and she kissed me while simultaneously saying: "why wuv wou"...I swear, everyone in the room heard it...I tell her several times daily that I love her and she is perfect the way God made her. Maybe she actually understands me!