A Very Good Day

My Darling Cade,

 

Today has been the proudest and most important day of my life. Today is the day I finally realized I'm a good mom to you and I know what the hell I'm doing.

 

You're nearly six months right now, just a week shy in fact, and you've changed and grown in ways I could never have imagined. I see newborn infants and I marvel in awe at knowing you were once just a mere 8 lbs 2 oz and 20 inches long. It seems so surreal that in six short months you've inspired change in my life that I was unable to do for 22 years. You have forced me to become a better person in order to be a competent mother to you.

 

So what made today so special? What opened my eyes and inspired such confidence in me? Today I proved to myself, and everyone else, I could do it alone.

 

You woke me at 5:30 as you're tending to do these days. It's not exactly a time I enjoy waking up at, but so far you seem perfectly content to continue. I let you play in your swing for a period of time while I tried to squeeze in a few more minutes of sleep. When I gave into your complaining, we cuddled in bed and played together. You've started to reach for me this past week. You smile when you see me and you reach out to me when I'm next to you and pull yourself close to me as if you just can't get near enough to me. You have a funny little noise you make which sounds something like "awh". You say this when you look at me, at my face, and smile from ear to ear, both cheeks raised to your eyes, as if you could just burst with joy. So we played together, and you smiled at me, and I forgave you for waking me up so damned early.

 

At seven I started to get you dressed and myself ready. No one else was awake yet and I had decided to take you with me to the gym to work out. For the first time today, I left you in the care of someone I'd never met before. It was a liberating experience. Being able to kiss you on the head, leave you with the KidsKorner woman, and walk the 25 feet across the room to the elliptical machine and spend 45 minutes working out. What made this so liberating was that there was no one else there telling me what to do, I was doing it all on my own. I got us both dressed and ready to leave, I got us to the gym early in the morning, I made the decision to trust my instinct on allowing this strange woman to watch you while I worked out, and there was no one there for me to feel obligated to ask if they agreed with me, if I was doing everything OK.

 

After working out you and I went back home, I showered and changed and then we went out to breakfast with Ama Lisa. Afterwards we drove to the Mall to meet Lacey for a day of shopping. Six hours and a few hundred dollars later... LOL. We had a grand ole time and headed home. You were so good all day. At home we played together, you rolled around and tried to crawl and jumped in your jumperoo. I could tell you were burning off all that jittery energy you'd pent up from being in the car seat all day long.

 

As I started to get you ready for bed, I thought about how at lunch you where trying to reach for my drink and hold it yourself and figure out how to drink it. I also started to think about how much you'd been drinking of your formula these past few days and decided it was time to try and see if you were ready for solids. Especially since you'd started to loose interest in your bottles towards the end almost as if you were done and didnt need anymore.

 

The very first bite of cereal (the only thing we had in the house to that you could eat) you took it, looked at me, seemed to roll it around your mouth a little and swallowed it like a pro. There was no awkward faces, no cringing, no shoving it back out with your tongue. You just took it all in stride and ate bite after bite after bite, with hardly any coming back out. I watched you eat, how you opened your mouth wide as I brought the spoon in closer just like you'd been eating from a spoon your whole life, and I thought about how proud I was of myself then and there.

 

I had made the decision to hold off on solids until you were six months. I fought tooth and nail with Ama Lisa about this, each week having a new battle over why I felt this way and why I wanted her to just let me be... I told her time and time again when you were ready we would know and you would know how to eat the food, we wouldn't have to force it down your throat. Now watching you right then and there I could see how I was right. I'd made the right choice, I'd done the right thing.

 

I knew then I could trust myself to make the right choices. That I didnt need anyone else telling me what to do. I had you all day to myself (with Lacey) and we didnt get upset once. We were happy, having fun, enjoying each other. And when I put you to bed, you went right to sleep with only a short obligatory protest.

 

I love you, sweet Cade. I love you more than I can even understand or comprehend. Today you have shown me that I can do this. I can take care of you, I can be your mother, we can have fun together. And I can trust my instincts on what is the best choice for us. I dont need to let anyone try to talk me out of what I decide... I am capable of making up my own mind, by myself. And I can trust the conclusions I come too.

 

<3 Mommi