Sunday, May 9, 2010

Happy Mother's Day!

So I couldn't be home to see my mommy on Mother's Day, but she was definitely the first person I talked to today (mostly because Adam was too asleep to even open his eyes) to let her know that I was thinking about her. She's the person I call if I have some exciting news to tell or something funny happened or just to call for 'whatever.' I think I started appreciating both of my parents more and more when I went away to college and started having to 'be an adult' myself. I could see the people around me and the different ways their parents raised them, only to think "my parents did it better." I can't wait to be able to take my kids over to Grandma Von Wahlde's for holidays and birthdays like I have always loved with my family. I can't wait to call her in the middle of the night (oh yes...middle of the night) because my baby won't stop crying or had a little runny nose and I have absolutely no idea what to do. I've learned a lot from my mother over the past 27 years and I know I haven't even begun to learn as much as has to teach....I think I will be able to learn so much more once baby O'Neill arrives.

I love you, mommy. Happy Mother's Day!


So, I also consider this my last non-Mother's Day. My last day celebrating Mother's Day before I have an actual child to say that I'm officially a mother. I subscribe to Oprah's "Thought of the Day" (I know, I'm a dork who's obsessed with Oprah). A few months ago, a few days after I found out I was pregnant, I received the following quote. It helped to explain in words one of the reasons I want to be a mother myself:

"I had always wanted children. Partly, I wanted someone else to be more important than me; mySelf was a burdensome thing to keep carrying around. But I'd been missing that Self since my daughter's birth. I hadn't know it would be so eclipsed by the constant worry - had she burped, slept, peed? ("Sleep when she sleeps," the doctor said. I couldn't. I was too stunned. There were moments in those early days that when she cried, I cried too.) But that day I saw her from the window of the bus, I almost yelped aloud - not just with worry, with love. Minutes later I sat on the front stoop, and when the babysitter pushed the carriage around the corner, I felt a huge billowing of love that sat like a gigantic, soft helium balloon on my shoulders. I didn't know a person could feel that love, it was so large. But then, a few weeks later, I watch my little daughter wake from her nap, kick her little feet. And-whoosh!-that feeling of love grew exponentially. This kept happening as the weeks went by, and each time I was amazed. How could love be this big? That enormous, soft helium balloon got bigger and higher, until my love filled the skies. Boundless, as they say."
- Elizabeth Strout, author

2 comments:

Mom said...

Thanks babe! I love you too! You have no idea how much you will love that baby until they place "her" in your arms. There are really no words to describe it and I can't wait until you can experience it. On the other hand, I can't wait until that grandbaby is in my arms and my heart can explode all over again!

Alisha said...

You guys are so sweet.

Hold tight to that baby when they put it in your arms because I'm pretty sure your mom won't give it back!

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