For Mother's Day

I became a mama on November 20th, 2011 and a mama of two on March 26, 2015. I can't remember my own phone number or what I had for lunch, but those days I can pull up in my mind and remember with every bone in my body. The fear (mostly mine), the tears (again, me), that newborn smell - it stays with you so viscerally while so much of the daily chaos is forgotten. Years of missed sleep and piles of diapers, when?!

Motherhood is such a different experience for everyone, which seems like a no-brainer but definitely took me a few years of doing it myself to understand. For every one kid there seems to be a million ways to mother them, and no one way is the right way, except the way that works for you. I think of all of the things I said I would not do before I became a mom and how those are the very things that are the core of my mothering now. I know now that you have a survival period and a growing period and a smooth sailing period and they all ebb and flow and change as soon as you get used to one.

So many words make up the fabric of my motherhood: love, balance, role-modeling, boundaries, self-love, feminism, vodka. I am, like most mothers, doing my best and trying to enjoy every (or every other) minute of it. Like (or unlike) some mothers I also take on other roles and also make them a priority: wife, friend, community leader, career-haver.  My way, my motherhood experience.

On this Mother's Day I reflect not on the differences in mothers but in what makes me love being a mother, on my own journey. The special time in the morning snuggling each girl (one an early riser, one not so much), honest conversations with them about the world around them, dance parties in the kitchen, a shared love of books and art and the color pink, the chance to role model a healthy marriage between two feminists, sharing the highs and lows of my career with them and, finally, love like I never knew possible. A deep, intense feeling in my heart for these two humans who I adore so, so much.

Thanks for making me a mama, ladies. And the happiest of Mother's Days to all you mamas out there doing it on your terms.

Weeks before becoming a mom; aka the last time I slept 8 hours. 

Raw, real, meeting the baby tears.

I had NO IDEA what I was doing. 

Funny story about when Annie wouldn't show us the money and we had no idea she was a she.

Kind of knew what I was doing but, not really.

And let's be honest, these two had my back once this one came into the picture. 

And finally, if anyone wondered where I get my love of eyeshadow and some of my good looks. Hi Mom.