I think I did, I hope I did......

He lay so peacefully in my arms. Sleeping soundly and yet smiling at whatever happy baby dreams he was having. I wondered what a six month old baby could be dreaming about that made him laugh and smile while he was sleeping. As he lay there cradled in my arms, I looked at him with awe and wonder and thanked God for this precious little person that I am blessed to call my son. Then other thoughts came to my mind. Did I spend these kind of moments with my other two when they were this little? Did I hold them like this, and look at them and caress their baby cheeks and thank my lucky stars for them? This is so horrible for me to admit but I don't remember. I remember the days of their births, I remember being happy to have them. But i don't remember the little things anymore. Shouldn't I? My six old month baby has me as a mom at forty-one. I was much younger when I had my older two and couple that with I was also a working mom. I guess I will always feel guilty that I couldn't be a stay at home mom for them. My youngest from my first marriage is sixteen and my oldest is nineteen. I remember different things about their first years, but there is much that I would like to remember but don't. All of a sudden I was panicked. I put my baby down in his crib. He had been sleeping in my arms for awhile and I could have gladly let him sleep like that a bit longer but all of a sudden I had to prove to myself that I did appreciate my older kids as much as I do my baby now. How could I prove this? Ok. My daughter's room. Although she is away at college, her room is stacked with pictures and diaries and letters and much, much more because of the pack rat that she is. I was sure to find clues to her childhood through all her memories and possibly see her growing up years through her eyes. Seemed reasonable to me.

Pictures. Boxes and boxes of pictures. Tons of pictures (most of our pictures are in her room waiting to be put in memory books). And in all of them she and her brother looked happy. They were pictures of Disneyworld, pictures of our trips to New York, to Mexico, to California, to Canada. Pictures of her and her brother when they were babies, when they were toddlers, when they became teenagers. Pictures of them with their friends, with their pets, with each other.....and then it hit me. Yes, the pictures oshow them in different stages of their lives and definitely happy, but ninety percent of the pictures were of them with each other, or with their friends, or with their father and other family members. They were very few of them with me. That hit me like a ton of bricks. My heart fell into my stomach. And then I realized it was okay. I was there. I was there through all of it, but instead of being in the pictures, I was taking the pictures. I was the one capturing their happy moments and making sure that we all had these memories to look back on someday. I was there. And their smiles.......I know I helped to put their smiles on their faces even if I don't remember all the days of their lives. Whew. I feel much better now :)

p.s. I'm going to make sure that I show up in more pics with all our children from here out.

Friday night lights out....

Big huge sigh.....it's 12:15am, so technically it's Saturday morning, but for a mother of a teenager, it's "Friday night". And on this particular Friday night, my sixteen year old son is watching a movie in his bedroom. This may very well be one of maybe two Friday nights that he's not gone out on a Friday evening all summer. His curfew is usually eleven o'clock but he always ends up spending the night or having a friend sleep over so these nights are usually spent with me not being able to sleep till I know he's home safely or till we've decided it's ok for him to spend the night with a friend. Generally if he is spending the night at a friend's I still worry about him till he is home the next morning. Why do I worry so much? Oh I don't know, sixteen is "that age" I guess. The time when they're trying to figure out who they are and where they fit it. They're also driving at this age now, and since they're all new drivers, car accidents are high on my list of things to worry about as well. Is he safe when he's out of the house, is he being good? LOL, is he having fun (I hope so) or is he having trouble fitting in? Sometimes all of the above and sometimes none. Did that make any sense? But tonight, I get to be worry free. He's home, in his room, watching a movie and checking in on the baby too which is a big help to me. I have a six month old and a sixteen year old both in their rooms upstairs. Even with the sixteen years between them, they're both still my babies and it's a treat to not have to worry about either one of them on this Friday night. LOL, I guess I'm glad that not many are reading this blog cuz me thinks people would think I'm nuts, but not other mothers, you know what I'm talking about. Well, it's Friday night (Sat in the wee morning) and the lights are out and I get to go to sleep and hopefully will sleep well. Night.

Hmmmm but my daughter is away at college and I do wonder what she's doing tonight.......

I am the zit popping Queen!

Hey Mom, will you pop my zit? Believe it or not those words were music to my ears. That meant that my sixteen year old son and I were on "talking" terms again. Yes, the fact that he was going to let my fingers pick and poke at his face meant that we were "good" again. Never was I so happy that my son had a zit that needed my attention. I washed my hands, motioned for my son to come put his head on a pillow on my lap and I proceeded with caution to clear his face of an ugly whitehead. Probably handled it better than any dermatologist ever, and when we were done, without any words over the fight we had had earlier, we both knew that for this evening, we were friends again. Thank God for zits.