Present- Mother's Day

I want to remember this weekend. I want to place the stories, the smiles and the small moments somewhere deep inside my long term memory so that when sad, dark times are consuming me I will have this weekend to pull out from my secret hiding place deep in my memory and I will smile. I will remember how good and full I feel and how easy it was.  It was that good of a weekend because I was present.

There is something about a girl and her mama. I am talking about my own mama. Thanks to my husband (with help from his parents) I spent 24 glorious hours with my mama on Michigan Avenue. I have never been away from my kids alone since I had them. I have only spent one night away from Cate and four from Brady.  We shopped ’til we dropped but really when we returned to our hotel room we had very little in the way of purchases. We were cold and wet because that is Chicago in May.  But we conversations that never staled.  I am not sure we ever stopped talking.  We talked about simple things like what to wear to the three wedding Glenn and I have in June to big life things like wills and death, marriage, and life with kids and how much it changes your views. And when the time came for us to part this Sunday morning,  we realized we forgot to talk about things like calendars and wedding dates and vacations.  We ate pizza, drank wine, and fell back in to this easy routine. As I pulled away in a cab, I was lost in my own thoughts about how we became so close and how she is me, my better half and I am her and only hoping to be half the mother she is to me.  And it dawned on me that between the naps and bottles and drool that I have a special little girl and I am her mama, nothing more and nothing less.  And there is not much more you can want. 

And when I did return home, my babies were there with the man I adore.  There is something so raw when you watch the man you love with the children your created together.  He softens when they need him. We did the simple things like eat lunch and change diapers, all the cliché things that you do on Mother’s Day like plant flowers, exchange cards and play outside and some pretty special things.

I wanted to plant in the wagon...that did not go over well.

“I want to hug you.”

“Brady, you want to hug Cate?”

“Yes please. I want to hug Cate.”

“You can hug her anytime you want.”

And as his arms wrapped around her, I was present watching them interact. I watched him kiss her unprompted. Later, as I pushed er stroller, I caught myself imagining the future they have together as brother and sister.  I wonder if they realize that in that one simple moment, I was present and felt so full and yet moments later consumed with hope for what's to come.

He's not a baby or toddler any more. He is a a little boy who just loves all three of us like it is his job. 

And as the day wound down we landed in a familiar place…our bed.  Tonight as Brady was being his silly self and Cate was laughing at him while Glenn and I protected heads from taking shots from flying feet and knees, I caught myself as the breeze came in our windows thinking that today I was present.  I was present with my husband and my kids all day.  I never told my kids to wait a minute, the whining didn’t bother me and when I put both kids to bed I watched both of them for an extra minute to remember what they looked like today on a day when I present. Today, I was just a mama. 

A day where I didn’t worry about the teaching assignments I need to confirm for next year or the closets that have not been changed out for summer or that groceries and laundry were left for a day. 

And even as life got more interesting tonight (a secret for later), I found myself just thinking about today and how lucky I feel my mama and I got some much needed girl time and my sweet girl and I did too. Doesn’t hurt that these two guys were around all day either.

So this Mother’s Day weekend may have come to an end but I took some conversations, some looks, moments and pictures to make sure I remember. Happy Tuesday Friends!