Happy Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day has been taken to a completely new level now that Ethan is here.  How cool is it that I get to celebrate motherhood as a daughter and a mom?  Thank goodness for my own mother and mother-in-law for all the love, support, and advice they've given me in my role as a mother.  I am so very grateful for these two women and I treasure every bit of their wisdom.  I wouldn't have become who I am today without them.  I hope that I'm living my life in a way that shows my gratitude for all that they have done for me.

You hear people tell you how hard it is to be a mom, and it's true.  I have never slept for more than six hours straight ever since the mini man was born.  I never knew that anyone's brain could still be running without a full night sleep for so long {though sometimes I do wonder if my brain cell count isn't half of what it was when I was in college}.  Pregnancy wasn't easy either.  The whole time I was pregnant my hormones were just running crazy and I had some of the worst eczema outbreaks of my life.  Somedays it was so bad I refused to get out of the house.  I even swore that if I had the same outbreaks during my second pregnancy then we would only have two children.  Labor and delivery {Need I say more?}.  The constant delaying of my own needs and wants so that I can fulfill my baby's.  Not to mention those horrible weeks when I had a broken disc in my lower back and a ten-week-old to take care of.  It is certainly no picnic.

But then, all of the things I just listed are nothing.  They are nothing compared to the blessings the stork brought to us along with the bundle.  I have been blessed to grow closer to and rely more on my husband.  This blessing came as I learned to accept the fact that I can't do everything myself and turned more to Jake for his help.   I have also grown closer to my mother.  Now I share with her all the joy and [some of] the sorrow that I experience from being a mother because I know that she has felt the same.  Despite the stretch marks, I now have more confidence in my body because I know that it is designed to do what God has planned for me to do.  I feel loved everyday by my eight-month-old child.  It amazes and humbles me how quickly he forgives.

As I snuggled up with my little baby in bed last night, I was filled with gratitude toward my Heavenly Father for giving me a chance to be Ethan's mother.