My Valentine's Day Top 10

By Cooper

I have many reasons to celebrate Valentine's Day this year, but these are the most important:

1. The Angel Baby. When I saw the two "positive" lines on the EPT stick a year and a half ago, I fainted. Not really, but almost. People sometimes call it an "oops" baby, and for most of my pregnancy I did too, as the idea of having four kids was not even close to being on my radar screen. I am here to say, ten months after he was born, that my beautiful baby boy could not be farther from an oops.

2. His Dreamy Ways. When I pick the baby up, he leans his forehead against mine and bats his eyes.

3. An Unexpected Moment.  On Christmas Eve, just as my husband and I got everyone to bed, our 3-year-old son threw up. I said to my husband, "This is definitely a worst-case scenario." After cleaning what I could, I turned to leave my little boy's room and he whispered, "Mommy, thank you for helping me." 

4. Wacky Sweetness. If the baby is crying, our 5-year-old daughter leaves whatever she is doing, comes running and strokes the baby's head, telling him, "It's OK." Without fail, the baby starts to giggle. As kind as she is, she's equally wacky. Last week she asked if we could go to the cemetery and dig up my grandmother to see how she was doing.

5. Daughter Courage. Because she is usually confident -- if not brazen -- I was blindsided one morning a couple months ago when my 7-year-old daughter stood at the foot of my bed and said she hated school. Sobbing, she told me about bullies, mean teachers, confusing school work and how badly she wanted a friend. It has been a rough winter, no doubt, but she has been brave. A few days ago she brought home a math test with "100 percent" written at the top and then she asked me to set up a play date with one of the bullies. 

6. The Little Things. After my 7-year-old told me about her troubles at school, I started to put notes that said things like "I am glad you are home!" in the mailbox for her to retrieve when she got off the school bus. I suspected she liked the notes primarily because of the candy, pencils and other doodads I usually left with them, but then I found an envelope tucked in the back of her drawer and in it, carefully folded, were the notes.

7. Mother's Devotion. For a variety of reasons, a few months ago, my mother ended up driving my husband to his vasectomy. When my husband got home from what we euphemistically called "The Spa Day," I asked, "How was it with Mom?" and he replied, "When I got out of the car she told me, 'Have fun!'"      

8. The Best Medicine. I love my husband for being my partner in this chaos, but I adore him because, most of the time, we can laugh about it all.

9. Who I Am. On the days each of my children were born, I became more and more me. Not that being a mother gave me an identity, quite the opposite. Somehow, with time, it freed me to find out who I am.

10. No Matter What. I hope and pray that every day, no matter how overwhelming or nutty life gets, I remember to thank my lucky stars for my sweet, loving, crazy zoo.

Comments

[Lamar Cole]

Love is a path to the heart that knows its own way.

[Lana]

Love this post. Simply beautiful. :D

[Kathy]

That post made me cry. It was really touching. I especially liked #9. I've been giving alot of thought lately about whether I was always this person (a mother) just waiting for my kids or if my kids made me into this person (a mother). I've been wondering about who I would be without them.

[Mom]

Laugh and cry because of a full heart...you,your partner
of ten years and those fabulous four people living with you--that circus-zoo -have given your Dad and me more blessings than we ever imagined ......All this and you are a gifted wordsmith with an ability to give description to those "small-enormous" moments of our days. Ilove you.
p.s. sometimes I think I should not have driven him to that appointment.

[gail]

Thank you for such a sweet post. It made me stop and think of those little moments my own children have given me. It will inspire me on the crazy days when I think I am going to lose my mind.

[Karen]

What a treat it was to read your article, it was wonderfully written and totally insightful. Happy Valentine's Day to you. Thanks for the refreshing thoughts.

[giovanna]

What an awesome essay! Thanks for sharing this. It has allowed me to put things into perspective. It is so easy to get bogged down with the details of a day-to-day...

[Nicola]

Number 9, wonderful! Its exactly how I feel. Being a mother did not establish my identity, but it allowed me the freedom to truly be ME, the person who had been so preoccupied with the little things, the superficial appearances, and the subjective judgements that she'd lost the substance of life. Now, as a mother, I only have time and patience for the big stuff. I am properly me again. Thanks for your beautiful post.

[kat]

A Happy Valentines Day to you and your family! And what a great post. I think I need to find my kleenex..