Word to Your Mother

I found out I was pregnant with Grace a few weeks after Mothers' Day in 2005, so the first Mothers' Day that I actually knew I was a mother was her first one out in the world when she was 3 months old or so.  A mother.  To this tiny little creature with chubby arms and perfect lips.  It's a good day to reflect on who I am now, and how my relationship with myself and with the world has changed now that there are small people who call me "Mama".  It still doesn't quite seem real sometimes that I am grown up enough to have children, but at other times I feel fiercely maternal and utterly at home with my life now.  Being a mother may be the role that has changed and enriched my life the most, in a stormy amalgam of biology and affection and faith.

We didn't do much today besides the normal Sunday routines of church but yesterday we spent time with my parents and my sister, who was in town from North Carolina for a wedding.  It is an amazing gift to live close to my parents and I'm going to deliberately soak up this time with them, and the connections that Grace and Violet can forge with them, while we're here.    It's a great thing to reflect on when I'm feeling less than enthusiastic about Texas and Dallas and all that.  So I hope you too had a happy Mothers' Day and were able to honor the mothers in your life.  Now I'm going to go drink the Mexican martini that Rob just mixed for me.