MOTHERHOOD

What a "turn your life upside down" experience it is bringing a new baby home. It doesn't matter if it is your first, fourth, or (my friend Carrie will attest) eighth. One minute I feel like I've been hit by a bus and the next I feel like my heart cannot hold all the joy...fallowed by a lack-of-sleep induced mental stupor. I thought I was having a perfectly fine day yesterday and my friend Carrie (who's number 8 child is 9 months old) called just because she was thinking of me and I burst into tears. I realized how lonely and isolating this "can't get a shower, let alone a night out" phase can be. And then last night I was holding Anne on my lap facing out after I fed her and when I turned her around to face me she smiled for the first time. Her big blue eyes met mine, she smiled, and then it was gone. Our first moment of real communication...

These beautiful children of God come into our homes, our families, our lives and take them over with their needs and their messes and their toys and their gigantic personalities stuffed into little bodies. It's overwhelming. The work is never, ever done. A "break" is getting to go to the grocery store by yourself. But, Oh, where would I be, who would I be if I were not their mother? I love being their mother.
Anne in her nightly spot, with the bassinet pushed right up next to my side of the bed.

The laundry basket of school papers, mail, magazines, paperwork from the hospital etc. that I have not have the time or energy to go through in a month...

Heather feeding her baby her "Breath" as she calls it. "I a mommy too. We both mommies" She keeps telling me.

This is what its all about.