Birthday Girl

One of the best things that has ever happened for the relationship I have with my mother was becoming a mom myself.

After Sam was born my mother came and stayed with us. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made, and I will never forget the overwhelming love I felt for her and my baby.

The way that everything comes full circle in those first weeks home with your new baby - it's so hard and yet such an amazing milestone. You are there, a mother yourself, but needing so desperately to be mothered. My mom was there through some very difficult times, fulfilling every need, feeding me as though I were a child, helping me heal from a very difficult surgery followed by an infection, and assuring me along the way that I could do this mothering thing too, that she did it and had "done a damn fine job of it," and so could I.

This is my favorite picture of her. I love her smile. Beautiful.

When I look at these pictures I see myself in her and Sam in me. I am struck by how much I look like her, how much I act like her. She's the one who taught me how to be a mother, and I'm doing a damn fine job of it, if I do say so myself.


Today is my mom's birthday. She is probably one of your lurkers - she subscribes to bloglines, because she's cool like that, but she probably has never commented, because she's shy like that. But she knows who all of you are and even asks me about you specifically in her emails. So if you are here, please join me in wishing her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!