mother's day 2015

I got lost in a sea of old pictures this morning - I can't believe most of them are so far gone, some tucked away permanently while others have been forgotten.  Thousands and thousands of life's snapshots as proof of time's transforming abilities with wispy curls making their way into buns, chubby, toddling feet modeling a variety of shoes and those newborn pictures adding a doting sibling, and then two.  The lives that once bloomed within my very body are the lives that now sing and run and read and snuggle.

It's hard for me to believe this was my seventh year being celebrated as a mom.  I am living my childhood dream and it doesn't feel real.  I never heard people talk about how hard it would be, but I never heard them talk about the ease of it all either.  But, boy am I learning to find the beauty in every single bit of it.

Just tonight, we went to dinner with my mom.  We ordered our food and then Luca decided nothing was going to make him happy, so we left.  I sat in the car while my food sat with everyone else at the table.  I wasn't upset or frustrated or wondering why it was today of all days.  Instead, we found fun places for pictures, we figured out how to eat saltines and slime them everywhere, and we inspected tree leaves.  It was unexpected time spent with just my baby and I loved it.

I don't know of a job that would evoke a wider range of emotional capacity, but I'm thankful for the humbling and very raw nature of it all.  And I am ever so thankful for the string of women that inspire me to be a better mom, the friends that love my babies like their own, the people that advise me, and the moms that came before me.  

Happy Mother's Day!