Happy Mother's Day

I hope you all had a lovely mother's day celebrated in just the way that makes you happy. I had a lovely day of breakfast out with my boys, flowers, a gift-bag full of relaxing bath products and a surprise trip announcement from the hubby. The sweet, sweet man has already booked a trip back to DC for our anniversary complete with airline tickets, boutique hotel stay and dinner reservations the night of our anniversary in the very restaurant we went to just about every anniversary when we lived there. Oh, and he already arranged child care (thanks again mom and dad!). I'm already counting down the days. This will be our first trip away from the peanut and although I'm sure I'll miss him like crazy, it will be heaven to just spend some alone time with the hubby as we celebrate our 10th anniversary.

Anyway, I spent some time last night contemplating motherhood. I babysat for a friend's 9 month old. I could tell right away that there were some differences between Baby J. and my little peanut. First of all, Baby J. is quite the hefty baby, while peanut has always been long and lean (not for lack of eating - today he ate Cheerios and cantaloupe before we left for breakfast, ate three mini-muffins, more than half a huge pancake and a few bites of my french toast all before 10:30am). Baby J. also has several teeth making appearances, while peanut didn't cut his first until well into his 10th month. And Baby J. is clapping. Peanut was well over a year before he decided to grace us with this adorable little baby feat.

But as I played with and tickled Baby J. I found it hard to take myself back to peanut at 9 months. And that was just a year ago. How, after trying to spend every day memorizing every detail, could I possibly not remember what peanut was doing a year ago?

It seems that motherhood forces living completely in the moment. It starts during pregnancy. As soon as the "morning sickness" (read: all day nausea) passed, I practically forgot about it by week 16. As soon as I was in labor, the cravings and hip pain and shortness of breath were replaced with more immediate concerns. And as soon as peanut was laying in my arms, the 30 hours of labor that proceeded that moment were completely forgotten. By the time I got home, the labor process was replaced in my mind with nursing information and wet diaper counts. By week six, the lack of sleep was replaced with when to move peanut out of our room and into his nursery. By month six when peanut began sleeping completely through the night, I soon replaced the middle of the night wakings with thoughts on solid food. By a year it was baby proofing the house to protect my newly mobile guy. And by now, month 21, I'm completely engrossed in the terrible twos and spending my days working on ignoring avoiding tantrums and testing timeout tactics.

I suppose that's why folks start thinking about another at this point - to try to remember it all again, experience those magic baby moments and perhaps do a better job of committing it all to the memory bank. Today, I'll try to relish in today's memories: the use of "purpose" instead of uh-oh at the restaurant when peanut intentionally tossed his crayons to the floor; "happy mommy, happy daddy, happy peanut" recitations; his beyond elated reaction to ice cream for dessert; dancing at the dinner table to some motown hits; psycho-babble to himself before bath that cracked him up no end and the big kiss and squeeze I got at bedtime.

And just to be safe, we took a few pictures and video. And just to be safer, I better back those up. If only my mind came with a built-in back-up.