Christmas in July

I went to see Hayden at lunch today, as I often do, and when I walked into the room and she heard my voice, her little head whipped around and she broke into a huge, gummy grin. Her arms started flying and her feet began thumping the bouncer she was in and she blew green bean-coated spit bubbles all over her bib and she let out a huge toot. How freaking cool is that, to have someone love you so much that they get so excited they totally lose control of their bodily functions and simultaneously spray their meal everywhere trying to greet you? Granted, it wouldn't be nearly as cute if, say, your friends did that when you visited, but I can't tell you what a goopy puddle my heart melts into whenever Hayden sees me. That look of sheer delight in her eye, the happy squeals and excited wriggling is so unabashed, so honest and complete in their acknowledgement that I am her mother, her first true love, it just breaks and swells my heart at the same time.

I'm not trying to sugarcoat motherhood. This is a wonderful gift, but such a hard gift sometimes. There are days I am numb from lack of sleep, times that I'm a crabby wretch to my poor husband, who is also learning these new rules we play by. There are moments that I'm terrified - not knowing what to do for her, and instants of sheer frustration and the unending mound of work that now constantly lays before me.


Despite all the difficulties, tears, and challenges this gift has brought, I can't help but think how lucky and blessed I am. Every time I come in to daycare to pick her up, or get her out of her crib in the morning, or look in the rearview mirror and see that sweet angelic face, I feel just like a kid at Christmas. I can't believe how LUCKY I am to get to take that sweet doll home with me. To cuddle her up in my arms and bury my face in her chubby little neck and breathe in that lovely baby smell. To kiss her cheeks, tickle her feet, squeeze her to me and know that she is mine, and better yet, I am hers. All hers. I am her mother. The one God picked to guard and guide as she grows.


That feeling is why we do this, I feel sure. That feeling is what I yearned for over the years when I saw mothers and babies smiling at one another. That is the piece of my soul that has been fulfilled by Hayden, just as there was a piece fulfilled when I met and married Chris. I have been made more than I was, more whole by becoming her mother.