Yesterday we woke up with the sun shining. Our night of sleep was made more luxurious by the new sheets we bought and deemed a mother’s day present. Matt made chocolate waffles with strawberry sauce and we drank heart coffee while singing songs to Daphne. She laughed and cooed as we marveled. After showing up for church at the wrong time the day was spent enjoying each others company and being a family. I celebrated my first mother’s day as a mom.
Little Daphne, you are at a stage that is absolutely captivating for us as parents. We do everything we can to make you smile, which usually includes some type of singing and these days you enjoy the Beatles. You now laugh occasionally when you get your diaper changed and I’m fairly sure you’re ticklish as well. What’s growing most noticeably is your length. Your legs stretch far across when we hold you and you love to balance and practice standing while we hold you up. When we sit in the kitchen you watch the dogs walk around and play with each other, and if your smiles are any indication you will soon love crawling around with them and pulling their tails.
If anyone were to ask what we thought about being your parents we would both say it’s amazing and completely worth it.
Worth it includes the fact that getting up to start the day I woke up twice to feed you during the night. Instead of getting up to leisurely read the paper your dad changed you and rocked you back and forth when you needed to nap. You sleep for three hours in the afternoon, which I’m sure you planned as a present, but the majority of the day was spent talking, reading and playing with you. It’s an entirely new way of life that is not focused on what we want to do but on taking care of you.
It’s absolutely worth it, but those words are too short a summary for the challenges and frustrations, joys and triumphs that come with raising a child, a journey we are just beginning. We dwell on the best moments because those are the ones we want to remember, the ones that get us through until the next. It’s easy for life to seem peaceful and perfect when you look at one image, but when you see a few of the other 74 shot you know that life is as fluid and unpredictable as ever.
It took about two hours to get you to bed last night, Daphne. You just didn’t want mother’s day to end.
