Mother's Day

So another Mother's Day has come and gone. Before I started to write this post I read what I wrote last year at Mother's Day to see if how I feel now is different from last year. I am not sure what even made me think about Mother's Day. The past two years I have tried any way I could to avoid it. Heidi and I were out and about on Saturday and a woman (that I had never seen before) wished me a "Happy Mother's Day". My first thought? "How did she know?". Then I realized, of course, she saw me with my daughter and therefore knew I was a mother.

My first mother's day was only a few short months after Hudson was born. Last year I was about a month away from having Heidi. This year Heidi was here for Mother's Day. Really and truly I still do not like the holiday, and that is okay. I do not have to celebrate with everyone else in the country. It is still a holiday, for me, that fills me with grief. I know all of us with loss always look for the one day when we will no longer feel this intense grief that we are right now. Truthfully I do not think it will ever go away. At a Bible study I am in currently and woman spoke of losing her son over 20 years ago - and she broke down when talking about him. Maybe this sounds odd, but I felt so much relief seeing her break down. Now I know that its okay that sometimes I still breakdown; and its okay that I will for many times to follow in the future.

I do want to explain that I love every bit of motherhood. Its definitely something I think comes naturally to me, which I did not think it would. I find it amusing how defensive mothers can be sometimes though, in our "mothering techniques". I think what happens is if you are talking to someone about your "techniques" and the other person does not share the same "techniques" then the conversation can become defensive because its as if someone else is challenging your parenting ability. Ok, that sentence sounded better when it was in my head, but oh well. I catch grief about co-sleeping and my feeding habits, but it works for me. It works to not have my child screaming her head off when we place her in the crib. It works that I am still nursing Heidi - she loves it and its good for her! So what if I hold her more than most people hold their child - it works for us. And whatever works for you - do it! Not every child is alike, nor do they need to be treated the same. Its what works best for your situation.

Totally became sidetracked. Back to the day at hand. It was nice to receive the happy wishes, but as much as there was "happy" there was emptiness. I just hope that I am able to enjoy the holiday as time goes on because I know that there will be a day when my sweet children on earth will bring me some sort of handmade goodie and I want them to know how much I love it without having hurt in my eyes.