5/12/13 Best. Mother's. Day. Ever.

Not to state the obvious, but I’ve waited a long time for this.

Thanks to my husband and my sweet girl, today was everything I ever wanted.  

Except for the girl I can’t have.  Again, obvious.

Still, it was the best Mother’s Day.  I got to sleep until 10:00 (not as glorious as it sounds because I was up at 4:00 and 6:00 and 8:00 with Cate, but I’ll still take it!!); Brad make me cinnamon french toast, turkey bacon, coffee and mimosas - AND cleaned up; gave me wonderful cards from himself and Cate (complete with her unique signature); and several hours to work outside in the sunshine pulling weeds, cleaning up the patio, fertilizing some plants, moving some others, etc.  Felt so good to be out there again knowing I had a wonderful little body and personality waiting for me inside with Daddy.   They came out to watch a few times and I was rewarded with giggles and waves and grins when I called to her from the grass.  The Best.

AND my fab husband completely surprised me with a brand new Burley biking baby trailer!  We took it out for a spin tonight and it’s super fun.  Fun for me to be “that mom” who’s (supposedly) active enough to warrant a bike trailer to haul her kids around while she gets her exercise AND cool enough to expose her kids to the outdoors and parks and picnics and all that comes with destination bike riding from time to time.   

I haven’t written here in ages, I know.  At least 100 times I’ve wanted to.  It’s a minor miracle I’m doing it now.  I don’t know if it’s my make-up, how I spend my time, or if being 44 really does mean I’m that much more tired than the Mom’s 10+ years younger than I, but I’m exhausted-amundo by the end of the day.  Blogging gets pushed off of the priority list, which is too bad, because I miss it.

Anyway.  There were teary eyes a few times this morning, as much for the girl I haven’t gotten to Mommy the last 3 years as for the glory of the girl I do, and the pure celebration that was My First Real Mother’s Day.  I didn’t go out to Anna’s bench.  Thought about it.  But there are soooooo many days I’ve done that in sadness, in melancholy, in missing her, in grief, in anger, in remembrance, to make a statement to Anyone taking note that she still matters and she’s still mine and I haven’t forgotten.   But today I didn’t want to be mad.  Or hurting and crying.   I think of Anna everyday, look at her pictures every day, wonder who she’d be every day.  Sometimes I let myself go farther and Feel.  It’s hard.  It hurts.  Today, I just wanted to... relish.  And I did.  I did, and I felt like a queen and we celebrated our beautiful and delicious Cate, who makes us laugh all the time.   She’s perfection and I’m so lucky to be her Mama.

Here’s to all my Mommy friends, may you have had a day worthy of all the work, exhaustion, trials and tribulations of parenting you’ve experiences the last year.  Here’s to all the women who want so badly to be Mommies - to living children, to any children.  I pray you get to have a Mother’s Day like mine as soon as possible.  

It doesn’t disappoint.