Skip to main content

You Say It's Your Birthday! It's My Birthday Too, Yeah!


Six years ago today, almost to the minute now, I became a mommy.

Just typing those words makes the Earth stop spinning and my eyes well with tears.

Six years ago.

Pumpkin is not a baby anymore. She doesn't need me for every little thing. She doesn't need me for any little thing, really, although sometimes she still acts like she can't brush her own hair or tie her shoes.

But the truth is: she doesn't need me for any little thing.

She needs me now only for big, scary things.

I look back through these blogs and remember freaking out trying to find the right sippy cup, make sure she walked and talked on time, and that her ear infections stopped. All noble mommy causes in their own right.  All nerve-wracking and consuming in their own time. How I wish any one of them were my biggest concern now.

These days I lose sleep over much heavier mama burdens like which friends she will choose, what choices she will make when I'm not looking, how comfortable she will be telling me things that I might not like, making sure she follows her heart but keeps her head, convincing myself to clip her wings, while holding her close as long as I can.

This child - this person - that God entrusted us with is such a paradox of beauty and depth and passion and soul. She can brighten an entire room with her smile and she can just as quickly darken the world with her eyes. She feels and knows thing that are beyond her years and even her own ability to fully comprehend. She's wise. She's a seer and an artist. Yet, when she gets the giggles there is no music on Earth that can compete in the utter joyfulness of the sound.

Six years ago she made me a mommy. But more that that, she made me a better person. She gave me love, hope, joy, and faith. She has taught me to see the world with new eyes and to experience true wonder. She has taught me to slow down, to listen, to admit to my weakness and to believe in my strength. In many ways, I strive to be more like her and pray that she always wants to be and is her own beautiful, strong, amazing self.

Happy birthday Pumpkin. mommy and daddy love you. Eat cake, stay up late, and laugh a lot. But most of all enjoy every minute of your life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hello! The Phone is Ringing So I Say Hello!

I’m not sure what I expected, really. I guess I thought that when Pumpkin officially crossed the one year threshold into toddler-hood that things miraculously got easier. I had a little parenting-confidence and puffed my chest out just a little as I slowly toddled with her, grasping onto my index finger, to the doctor’s office for her one year appointment (see video for an idea of how slow slow is). I sat proudly in the “well baby” room (a place we haven’t spent much time) remembering the days I sat in that same room crying, looking frantically around for a spare diaper and praying they wouldn’t call her name before I could unhook her from her carseat (which took a long time back then) and changed her diaper. One year later here I was. We had come so far. I was proud of us and I looked at those new mothers with a little knowing pity. In all my one year of wisdom, I sat there glowing with the realization that the hard times were behind us. I didn’t have a “baby” anymore, I had a toddle...
3 comments
Read more

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let the...WHAT?

As many of you know, when Pumpkin was first born I was a frantic mess. Every time she inhaled, I timed it and then Googled it to make sure it was "normal." I did not have time to nap, even in those early exhausted days, because I was constantly checking the Internet to make sure that both she and I were doing everything "right." Unfortunately, I realized too late that the Almighty Internet is a wealth of knowledge...and of useless crap. Anyone who wants can post anything they want on the Internet. Take this Blog for instance - I have no particularized knowledge about anything maternal, but I could start writing exclusively about how if your child is not snorting five packets of Kool-Aid each morning, she is doomed to be a terrible speller. Of course this is not true (or at least there is no scientific evidence to back it up), but I could write it here and, based on my writing about my own "experience" some new mother would be at Sam's stocking up on t...
2 comments
Read more

Back to Work

I'm calling this blog "Raising Pumpkin" because Aaron calls our little girl Pumpkin Head. I started this blog for several reasons, one of which is to keep my mother-in-law up-to-date since she lives 1000 miles away. Another is that as I came into the office this morning near tears and frazzled, one of the ladies said my woes gave her chills and that I needed to keep a journal to remember all these things that I would laugh about one day. This is that journal. I hope it can be both an outlet for me as a mother/wife/daughter/sister/friend/lawyer and also bring some comic relief to these days when I just want to scream. So this was my first week back to work...and even though it was a short week, oh how long it felt. Day one was met with tears and nausea as I dropped Pumpkin off at her first of school. I was so worried that she would wake up and not know where she was. Aaron assured me that it wouldn't matter because she never knew where she was. So much for comf...
2 comments
Read more