Being A Mommy

On June 25, 1990 my life changed forever.

 

I gave birth to a magical baby boy and I discovered a kind of love I had never known before.

 

A fierce, unconditional and wonderous kind of love that continues to take my breath away!
 

I say surprising because I was totally unprepared for the depth and the size of this love for my son.  As the oldest of six children and one of 35 first cousins, I grew up constantly surrounded by babies and toddlers.  Also, there is only seven years separating me and the youngest of my siblings, who are twins.  That's a lot of bottles and diapers but also a lot of fun!

 

I adore children and find them to be exhausting but special little creatures who I automatically love for their spontaneity and ability to constantly reveal the world to you in fresh and exciting ways.  I thought I had figured out what motherhood would feel like because I had been taking care of children since I was six or seven years old.

 

Until I gave birth to my own child. 

 

Holding my baby boy after giving birth was a truly powerful and emotional experience.  All those feelings of love, protection, hope, joy and expectations came at me all at once as I gazed down at his beautiful face!

My son is now 22 years old and I can definitely say that I love him more than anything else in the whole world!   But I also can definitely say that I like him as a person and enjoy hanging out and talking to him whenever we can.

I love this picture of my son!!! He is so happy!!

Raising my son with his father and then later as a widow, has made me dig down within myself and try to work on the twisty sides of myself and put him first.  In other words, to consider what life is like from his perspective, not in an indulgent way, but in the way of trying to understand that he has been dealt something in life that is entirely different from what I knew as a child.

He has brought out a different side of myself and helped me become a better person.  Being mother and father has not been easy but I have to say that I wouldn't trade one second of it because those jobs are the most important jobs we are ever asked to do.

Today I think of those early days when a sticky kiss and a hug from my son as a baby and a toddler where the best things I could ever receive to the current days of animated and quiet conversations about life that end with "Thanks Mom! I love you!"

Thank you Ryan!!!!!!!!  Being your mom is the best!!!!
 

An Emotional Box

As I continue to slowly reorganize my freshly painted bedroom, it is amazing the things you find stored under your bed.

 

Last week I wrote about my long put-off decision to finally paint and reorganize my bedroom following my husband's death.  Now, as I pick and choose what I am bringing back into that room, I am dealing with some of the things that I pushed aside and choose not to think about.

 

In this instance, it is an old Estee Lauder box that once held cosmetics and perfume.  I loved the different colored berries pictured on the outside of the box and so I kept it and filled it with special things that I wanted to keep together in one place.

 

 

 

 

When my son was born, I put all the cards that people mailed to us in that box and then I continued to fill the box with birthday and holiday cards that he received as a child and various art projects that he did when he was in pre-school.

 

OMG, it is so precious!  When I opened the box, I just sat there and stared at it for a long time.

 

It's quite the emotional box; full of hopes, dreams, expectations, love and all the sweetness that I felt with the birth of my son and his early years as a toddler.  I went on a trip when I opened that box, a trip where I met myself and my husband some twenty-odd years ago.  We weren't young parents but we were a lot younger then and we had a new little baby boy and we were full of love, love, love and oblivious to the idea that it could ever, ever change.

 

I brought the box to my son, my "baby" who is now in his twenties, and showed him what I had found.  I took the cards out, one by one, opening them up and reading the kind messages and telling him about the friends and family that had sent these amazing cards when he was born and the other cards that came to him on Halloween, Valentine's Day and other birthdays.  He was fascinated that I had saved all these things and I was too.

 

In a way, I wished I hadn't saved all these sentimental momentos.  They were from another time, a time when there was three of us.  It's only been my son and I after my husband's death and sometimes it feels as though it's always been that way.  Or at least my mind tricks me into thinking that sometimes. 

 

But the cards are proof of a different family and different people.

 

I don't mean that in a bad way or even a sad way.  It was just different.

 

Finding the box led me and my son to talking and reminiscing about the people who sent the cherished cards and telling stories about them.  As we laughed and I answered his questions, I remembered things that I hadn't thought about in years and at the same time I felt the responsibility of being the only parent.  Since his father is no longer alive, I really wanted to remember everything I could to let him know what that time was like when he was an infant and toddler.

 

There are a lot of times as a single parent that you have to be both mother and father.  Discipline and financial decisions immediately come to mind as examples.  That isn't always a great role to fill and those are the times when you wish you had someone else to share the responsibility with.

But this time I was happy to talk to him for hours about the immense happiness that his birth brought to us, his mother and his father, and continues to bring to me. 

 

January Baby

 

 

 

I am a January Baby and yesterday was my birthday.

I am happy to have a birthday (Elvis and I were born on the same day!) but I wish I had been born at a different time of the year.

 

By the time my birthday arrives, people are usually burnt out from the holidays.  Throughout the years, I have found that friends and family are either on a diet in January or they had spent too much money on Christmas so they are back on a budget in January.  Sometimes I have received gifts in Christmas wrapping paper and sometimes I have received one gift that is for Christmas and my birthday together.

 

I think it's an early January thing.

 

I like warm and/or hot weather much better than cold weather so I envy those people who have birthdays when it's warm.  They have it made in the shade so to speak!

 

But yesterday in Washington, DC it was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining and there was no snow on the ground...Yeah!!! And as I walked down the street from my office to meet a wonderful friend for a spontaneous birthday lunch (those are the best!), I thought about all of my blessings and the huge positives in my life.

 

I work hard to stay healthy and I will continue to do that this year but I also want to learn to meditate.  I think meditation would add a sense of calm to make mental being that I don't always have right now and would help me feel me more mentally fit.  There is a mind/body connection that I need to address because research -- and life experience -- shows that stress drains the body of energy, causing it to function less effectively.

 

I also have reached a stage in life where I no longer wait for things to happen.  I like to learn new things and to put myself out there a bit.  What's the worst that can happen?  Let's see...I could fail and look foolish (like that's never happened before!) or I could succeed (YES!).

 

I'm not talking about forcing a situation, rather the idea that if there is something you have always wanted to try then go ahead and try it.  You can't wait for certain circumstances to present themselves because then you might be waiting a long time.  I don't want to look back on something years later and wonder what would have happened if I done such and such a thing.

For me, the simple life, a life full of friends, family, good health and my dear readers is the life well lived.

Without those essentials I have no base or foundation of being.  Those essentials give me purpose and an endless supply of resources to celebrate the gift of life every year.

Getting A Life

"Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. Hug your Dad. Get a life in which you are generous."

 

                                             ~ Excerpt from Anna Quindlen's Villanova Commencement Speech, 2000

 

 

 

Baby Practices Picking Up Cheerios

 

 

I worked a few hours in the office yesterday and then was able to leave early.  I didn't feel guilty at all about cutting the work day short.  I was looking forward to meeting my son at the movies.  We saw "Les Miserables" and I enjoyed it but I prefer the stage version of the iconic story about the French Revolution.

 

While waiting in the lobby, I let my mind wander and watched the cold, rainy weather outside.  I could feel my shoulders relax as I looked up at the clear slanted ceiling and my eyes followed the sliding raindrops down the glass.  After a few minutes, my mind seemed to empty of office concerns and I starting thinking about the importance of mentally and physically breaking from my work schedule.

 

I could work all the time if I wanted to.  Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with work and I am happy to have my job.  I have a strong work ethic and get a lot of satisfaction from doing my job and doing it well.  But there comes a point when you need to recharge and you can't do that if you are always working and always pushing yourself to do more work.

I find that working constantly starts to make me inefficient.  I start to get tired, I get headaches easily and I start to answer people in a short manner.   When I start experiencing those symptoms, I know it's time to take a break and do some of the things that Anna Quindlen suggests in her quote above: pick up the phone, call a friend or a family member, write an email, connect with another person.

I need to work to support myself financially but I also need to remember -- especially during the holidays -- to take a break and enjoy the treasures of my life.