Mother's Day

When I was pregnant, I wrote a blog post about being terrified about becoming a Mother. I had come across one too many articles about how my marriage would change once we added a baby, and I had become terrified about what would happen to my marriage once Ava arrived. I reached out to my Mom, and to my sister, who had been there, but I could not shake the worry; until my Mom reminded me of the picture frames my husband and I made eachother for our wedding. They now hang over my bed, and I have had to look at them many times since Ava joined our family. When we made them, the idea was simply for us to share with each other, and with our families, what we love about each other.

                           

Some nights we would argue over who would get up with her, or bicker about the messy house that we were both too tired to clean. We would shoot daggers at eachother if one of us made a noise just loud enough to cause her to wake up, or even that could potentially wake her up. On those nights, nights my Mom warned would come, she suggested that I look at that frame that hangs over our bed, and to remind myself of just how much we love eachother, and of all the things that made me fall in love with my husband.
That picture frame has brought me back down to the reality of marriage and motherhood more times than I could count.

Days like today, my second Mother's Day, are the ones that just make those difficult days just a little less difficult. They are the days when my husband pulls just a little something extra out of his bag of tricks, little somethings that will fill my heart.
My husband proposed on the dock at my Papa's cabin, a place so special to me, but in such an unspoken way that I would have never expected to be proposed to there.
Today, without any clues, or even recent conversations about, my husband drove the three of us out to Greenpoint, a place that I have such fond memories of from my childhood.

My darling girl and I climbed up onto that big rock, just like my siblings and I used to, she threw rocks into the water for what felt like an eternity (a perfect eternity), she stopped to inspect every bug, every stick, and every puppy that crossed her path, she squeeled when she saw other "keeds" down the beach, and she laughed as the rocks thrown into the water splashed water back up onto her (her Grampa will love playing this game with her this summer, but Ava had better be prepared to get a little more wet than she did today.).
My sweet bean watched in amazement as a plane flew dangerously close to the water, and to the trees, spinning and flipping in the air, and watched with confusion as a couple on paddleboards glided across the water, seeming to walk on water.

These moments that I am able to relive my own childhood and watch her bask in hers are what I always dreamed motherhood would be about. Thank you my husband husband, for finding ways to give our family just what we need just when we need it. We love you so much.