To my mother...

To all my girlfriends who have just had their first child or are expecting...Samantha, Whitney, Heather, Holly, Meagan, Leslie...how much respect do you now have for your mother? I know when I got married my respect for my mother increased, but now that I have survived my first pregnancy and have become immersed in motherhood, I am in complete awe of her. For starters, my mother embraced motherhood being four years younger than I am now. Sometimes I'm still not sure I'm old enough to be so responsible, yet here I am. Secondly, I never knew what it meant to love someone so much...and with that comes an overwhelming responsibility. I feel it's my job to interpret his every cry, meet his every need, protect him from everything, teach about everything around him, and make sure he understands he's loved and safe. I suddenly understand how much my mother loves me and feel very ashamed of a number of things I might have said to her between the ages of 12 and 18....Mother, please forgive me. And lastly, I'm exhausted...and my mother had two of us pretty close together. We get up at 4am, I feed the baby, put the baby back to bed, work for a couple of hours, play with the baby when he gets up, try to get a walk in, put the baby down for a nap, work some more, play with the baby again, try to get dinner ready (Rodney fills in here, too), bathe the baby, put the baby back to bed around 9pm, try to get some laundry done, maybe take a shower, and crash around 11pm. Of course, when Rodney's home I do get a few more breaks...but even then I'm not resting...it's laundry or dishes or something else around the house....and I'm only on my first child. I've still got another one or two to go. So Mother, please accept this ranting as a standing ovation in your honor. Suddenly, I greatly appreciate all the class parties you hosted, the slumber parties you put together, the miles you drove for all our extracurricular activities, the outfits you made, the meals you prepared for the cross country team, the pillow cases you made for the cheerleading squad, the dance recitals you coordinated, the vacations you planned, the snacks you had ready for us after school, the lunches you packed every morning, the ironing you did every day before school, the endless sports events you attended, the home cooked meals we had almost every night, the checks you wrote so we didn't have to sell crap for fundraisers, the shopping trips you took us on for school clothes, the arguments you mediated between us girls, and the countless other mother miracles you performed. If I haven't said it before, THANK YOU...can't wait to see you!

Okay...now that I've gotten a few things off my chest, check out my adorable son and his shirt completely covered in slobber...Mother said it must be hereditary...and not from Rodney.