Mother's Day sappiness

Happy Mother's Day, from me and my boys!

Once upon a time, I was fairly anti-sappy posts. I still am in theory, but having a kid has changed me in this regard, as well as so many others. With it being Mother's Day and all, I've done some reflecting and I'm just going to do a deep dive into cheesiness, and to assist me, I've had some wine. Buckle up. 

As a kid, of course I thought my mom was the best mom ever, with the exception of some bratty teenage moments that I look back on with embarrassment. As an adult, I now realize that isn't the case for everyone, so I feel insanely lucky to have grown only more impressed with what a great mom I have. If I can be just a fraction as good to Dalton as she's been (and continues to be) to me, I'll call my life a success. 

Tiny Dalton with his two amazing grandmas

I always thought mother's day was designed to thank the person kind enough to bring you into this world, and that's still a good plan. But today I've thought just as much, if not more, about how grateful I am to be a mother myself this year. It's unfortunately not something that comes easily to everyone who wants it, and I count my blessings every day for it. 

SO TINY

It seems crazy to me now that when I was pregnant, I would have moments, like, a lot of moments, where I had thoughts like "WHAT WAS I THINKING I LOVE SLEEP". I would actually worry that I was going to hate giving up my freedom. Everyone said that once he arrived, I wouldn't be able to remember my life without him. Which doesn't make sense. At all. And it still doesn't, but somehow it's true. I can't believe I ever thought that I would miss scrolling through Facebook at my leisure, or watching The Office repeats, and whatever else I filled my time with previously. Those things are still great, but they don't hold a candle to watching this amazing little person that I (ok, we) created explore and discover his world, but still looking back to make sure I'm there, and smiling when he sees me.

He's off! As always these days!

Friends told me that they would alternate weekend days getting up with the baby, so that each person could sleep in one day, and pregnant me thought that seemed genius. In reality, we've never done it, and right now it sounds awful. No matter how early it is on a Saturday or Sunday or how tired I am, as soon as I hear him in his crib, I'm excited to get him and start our day together. Eric sleeps in sometimes, but that's usually because he's a night owl and he's gotten plenty of quality time with Dalton after the sun set. If not, he's usually up to see him as well. 

I've complained a lot about having to work and take him away from my little man, and I will continue to do so. But I do feel the advantage of spending time apart is that I truly treasure every single moment with him and don't want to miss a single one. There's no way of knowing if I would feel differently if I could stay home or work part time, but this validates my lifestyle so don't argue with me.

Part of being a one car family meant Eric was responsible for daycare drop off and pick up. I live close enough to walk, but let's get real, I got rides. The first day of this, I cried when I got to work because it meant an extra half hour (at least) until I got to see Dalton at the end of the day. Although in retrospect, if a "problem" in my life is that I love someone so much that I can barely make it through the work day away from him without tears, I'm doing pretty good. The one day I did get him, I needed to stop for milk. His daycare is right behind a grocery store, and as I turned on to the street, I told myself to just stop, run in, and then pick him up, because it would be so much faster and easier. But I couldn't do it. I picked him up first, and then ogled at his cuteness as I pushed him around the store and felt I made the right choice. I just love being with him so much.

My little fireman

Seeing my 2.5 year old nephew this weekend had me so excited for all the fun times to come as Dalton grows up.

Cousins in matching outfits THE BEST

 But at the same time, I want to freeze time and keep him a sweet little baby forever. Right now, I've only ever felt love and adoration and all sorts of other positive mushy gushy feels toward him. I know the trade-off for all the fun in the future will be that he will make me mad at times, and the thought of being mad at him breaks my heart right now. And at the same time still, I want to go back in time to when he was a tiny lump of a person and could do absolutely nothing but eat, sleep, and poop, and just slept on our chests 23 hours a day. Now he's too busy exploring to cuddle. I thought I had more time before that!

One day old. Seems like yesterday.

So, in closing, when people said they felt lucky to be their kids mom and other stuff like that, I totally thought it was BS, but actually it's true (for me). Seeing this face every day makes me happy beyond belief, even if it's crying at 3am.

Giving me my Mother's Day gift. What a sweetie.