Milestones...

Today we’re going to take a break and celebrate something other than my wedding. When you’re planning a wedding, it’s SO easy to get all wrapped up in that one event, and it’s nice to take a step back every once in a while and celebrate other things. Because in all honesty, life goes on and your wedding day is just ONE day in the year. There are other important days…

Today is one of my most important days each year. Today is my baby’s birthday. Go ahead and get your tissues out, because I’m already tearing up! That’s fair warning to all of you out there that this one MIGHT tug at your heart strings a little.

My child turns seven today. SEVEN YEARS! Where did the time go? Some days I think back on the time that I’ve been blessed to share with this amazing little person in my life and the days have drug on and on…and other times (like today) looking back on things really shows how time flies. It is true what they say - you can blink and miss things in your life. The really important things, the small things that might not mean much at that point in time, but over the course of seven years really add up.

At this time seven years ago, I was in labor, and just getting ready for my first shot of pain meds. Yeah, I’m not one of those women who wanted to do things all natural. I wanted the drugs…all the way. But little did I know, you have to be so far along before the REALLY good drugs come into play, so about 9ish that morning I took my first shot. And from there on out I was just loopy. It’s not that I don’t remember the event; I didn’t want to be that knocked out. But I would sleep/doze off in between contractions. Friends and family that made it there in time to see this portion of the program got some serious entertainment, let me assure you! Around lunchtime, the doctor decided that I could have my epidural, and from there on out it was pretty easy. Jenna was an easy labor, even if it did last about 14 hours in total. Once I was ready to push, it just took getting me and her in the right position and a couple of good pushes and she was born.

She was so beautiful. A lot of babies that are born not through c-section have mis-shapen heads, as the birthing process is hard on the baby too. Not little CC. Her head was perfectly round, and her coloring was great. She cried out really fast and let her wishes be known immediately. Some things haven’t changed.

But some things have. She no longer crawls into my lap. I can’t hold her in my arms like a baby anymore. And she’s getting to the point where she doesn’t really need me much anymore. She’s always been very decisive about her clothes and what-not, and at 7 years old, I don’t have to help much…maybe just to tie her shoes. Yeah, I’m the mom that buys Velcro because it’s easier on me…so we’ll work on learning to tie our own shoes this year…

She takes her own bath or shower, and really just needs me to check and make sure that she got all the soap out of her hair. She brushes her own teeth, and for the most part, now uses the restroom without my supervision (this is a MILESTONE, let me assure you!). She writes legibly, even if the words are very creatively spelled, and when we drive down the road, she can read the signs that we pass. She reads books to me now, although I still read to her. And she says her own prayers at night, although she likes to have me there with her when she does them. We have a secret huggie and kissie ritual that we do each night at bedtime, and she hardly ever gets in and out bed to resist bedtime like she used to as a toddler.

Looking back on these seven years, there have been so many changes. She is my light, she makes me smile, and almost every decision that I make revolves around her and how that choice might affect her. This is what happens when you have kids, I guess. Your life isn’t your own anymore, and you have someone else that matters more than you do. You buy them clothes before you buy yourself clothes. She gets a toy, even if I can’t justify $6 for a new book to read at the time. I don’t regret that, and I would do it all the same given the same choices. She is everything to me.

A hug from your child can bring a smile to your face and a warm glow in your heart. Hearing “I love you, Mom” from those lips touches you deep inside and you know that at that moment nothing could be more perfect in your life. And I treasure each and every single picture that she draws me, or rocks that she picked up “just for me” on the way home from school…even if I know that my house is over-run with her artwork and school papers and that pile MUST be cleaned out and trimmed down soon.

Having her has been the greatest joy in my life. She gives me purpose, she provides me with direction, and she fills me with tenderness. Yes, there are days that I would pay someone $20 to take her away from just half an hour…but I wouldn’t trade those times either! She is my blessing, my greatest accomplishment, and I am the lucky one to have her in my life.

I hope that one day she and I will have the relationship that my mom and I have. I look forward to being more her friend, and less her mother as she continues to grow older. That doesn’t mean that I look forward to the day when she leaves my house to go out into the world on her own…but with that pain comes a new relationship too. I will always be her mother, but I can also be her friend.

So to all the moms out there, go hug your kids. Or your own mom. Or a niece or nephew as the case may be. Too bad schools are out now, or you could just drive by a random school and stop to hug a few kiddos…of course, if you do that you might get arrested! If you see me, hug me! As happy as I am that this day comes around once a year, I’m still a woman and it doesn’t have to make sense that I cry on her birthday!

I’ll leave you with a picture of little CC with her award for Best Artist that she got during the last few days of school. Isn’t she precious?!?!?

Happy Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and it was a great one for me! First of all, I want to wish ALL mother’s out there a VERY happy (albeit belated) Mother’s Day. Being a Mom is one of the hardest jobs out there, and it’s the most rewarding job on the planet.

My day was perfect. I got to sleep in, and then I got sweetly woken up (not with a kiss, but close) to be told that breakfast was ready. I usually do the cooking around our house, unless it’s on the grill of course, and for my special day I didn’t have to do the cooking or the cleaning. As the “chef” I also am usually the last one that gets to eat, so it was a double rare treat to get my plate handed to me when I got downstairs and I was the one that ate first. But before I could eat, I was blessed with gifts galore. I had cards from both kids and flowers from my FH, along with a small teddy bear with a mini-balloon and some candy. Mr. CC did good!

After breakfast, since I didn’t have to do the dishes either, I was given the REMOTE. Yes, girls, you read that right. I had total control over the remote for the ENTIRE day. It was nice, let me tell you – the power that one little device holds is just amazing. We settled down to watch a movie, Mr. CC did some laundry and I was not allowed to do anything that remotely resembled work. So it was a restful day spent for me.

I did remember to call my own mothers about halfway through the afternoon, don’t worry. I missed both of them the first time that I called, but talked to each later in the day.

The perfect day was topped off with Mr. CC grilling up some chicken for dinner…yummy! Although Mr. CC’s son had to go home in the middle of the day, little CC was there with us all evening. She was super cute about “helping me” all during the day so that I had a good Mother’s Day. Isn’t it cute when kids are old enough to understand that this is your day and they make the choice to do all that they can to make it a good day? This is the first Mother’s Day that little CC had understood this, so it was very special indeed.

How was your day special?

Rearranged Dreams...

Has anyone out there ever started planning your perfect day – your wedding day – only to have something happen to make it totally out of whack? So much so that you just have to go back to the main drawing board and start again?

That happened to me last night. I’ll tell you about it…

My parents seemed to be excited about my new engagement. My fiancé and I live about 4 hours away from my family, so it’s not as if they know him on the level that I know him, but we make the attempt to visit with them and give them that opportunity. So when he asked them for my hand, they all agreed. Some gave advice, and some didn’t – that’s just my parents. (They have been divorced since I was a small child, and have both remarried – he had two sets of parents to talk with.)

But when we got engaged, it was more a formality in my mind. To me, we’d been talking about the wedding that we wanted and how we wanted to do things for the last three months. I hadn’t really talked too much with my family about these things so that he would have the opportunity to ask for my hand without them knowing that we’d already been talking about it. So, pretty much, I need to give them time to catch up.

But the whole time in the last two or three months that we’ve been looking for venues and vendors and deciding what we wanted to have for our wedding, I’ve had this image in the back of my head on how this all would go down. My family would be excited for me, and my mom and step-mom would get involved in the planning aspect of things. At least to go dress shopping with me and maybe be there to help me pick out colors and flowers and that type of thing.

So imagine my surprise when I get a tepid response from my mom when I asked her about having friends to invite to the wedding. She said no. And she didn’t just say no, she said NO. I was taken aback and kinda confused, but I didn’t say anything other than ok. I got off the phone with her and went about my business. But it bugged me. It sat in the back of my head and bugged me all night long. And for most of the next day.

So by the time that my fiancé came and got me for dinner, I had worked myself up all kinds of ways. I laid it out on the table with him to get his opinion. (He’s absolutely my best friend in the world and I trust what he says and value his opinion.) He encouraged me to call my mom and talk things over.

When I worked up the courage to do that, sometimes a girl needs a little pep talk first, I called and talked to her about us picking a date for the wedding (still not decided on that one) and her opinion of it. She started asking some questions and even wanted the website of the venue that we were looking at doing the shin-dig at and I had pretty much convinced myself that I was wrong. That I had just caught her on an off night or just totally misread things. But me being anal me, I had to ask the question to be sure. (Are there ever times you wish that you’d just shut up?)

Her answer was that even though she was happy for me and excited for me, she was old fashioned in her beliefs and let’s be honest here, this was my third wedding. One just doesn’t do a big wedding for the third one. She didn’t have any friends that she wanted to come to it, since it was my third. She went on to say that most of her friends now didn’t know me and she didn’t think that they would want to travel the 4 hours to see someone that they didn’t know get married. She was nice about it all, but pretty much she told me that she thought that it was tacky that I was having a big wedding on my third marriage. It’s just not done.

And my dreams were crushed. The vision in my mind of us dress shopping and asking her opinion on this color vs. that color or helping with the centerpieces just swirled around and around and around the delete tank in my mind until they disappeared. They are gone and that never will be. As I sat back and thought about it, I cried. And not just little tears, but great big wrenching sobs. My mom’s approval means a lot to me, and she pretty much told me that I didn’t have it.

It’s disappointing, but nothing that I can’t work around. Despite how she might feel on the subject, my fiancé and I BOTH want a big wedding. Neither one of us had happy last marriages, including the actual wedding ceremony, and we want that. We truly want to have our friends and family around to support us and cheer us on as we make this step in our lives. We’re not old, we’re both in our very early 30’s, so this is a big step for us. Since we both have been married before, we’re not asking anyone other than ourselves to pay for this, so if this is what we want then it’s what we want. And I’m happy with my decision to press on. And feel truly blessed that when faced with this crying girl that wasn’t even making sense while she tried to explain what just happened, my fiancé scooped me up and sat me in his lap so that I could be held while I cried. When the tears stopped and I was able to explain without the sobs, he hugged me and said that it would be ok. That he would be right by my side and help me do the flowers….he’s a gem of a guy!

But the little girl inside of me is still sad to lose the person that I wanted most by my side during this process….

Has anyone out there had to re-arrange or cope with a new theory on how to do something like this without that one person that you wanted to be involved in it with you?