thirty days with a grateful heart. day six.

day six.  graham higgs.

Before Little J was born, there was no way I could have even imagined how much I would love him.  Nothing in my life could have prepared me for the breadth, the depth, the sheer and utter magnitude of emotion, of love, that overcame me when I held him for the first time.  My baby.  My boy. 

My heart swells and my eyes fill when I remember that day.  How incredible, really, that day I became... a mother.

I must be honest, I was worried when I learned I was pregnant with Frankie.  I'd given my heart to Little J.  Was there room for her?  How on earth could it be possible to love, to love them both, like that?  Wholly?  Completely?  With every ounce of my being?

And then, well, and then, she arrived.  And in that instant, I knew what mothers forever have known.  There is no occupancy limit on a mother's heart, it simply expands and makes room. 

Of the myriad titles that I hold... daughter, friend, employee, wife, runner, aunt... mother is the one that I covet above all others.  Because stripped down to my very core, a mother is what I am.  What I have always wanted to be.  What I always will be. 

I look at my littles and I see the incredible young adults they are becoming. I study them when they are not aware. I watch them as they interact with others. I ask them questions and I listen to them respond. Sometimes their answers are as I imagine they will be.  And sometimes, their insight, the depth of their thought simply blows my modest hopes away. 

I am so amazed sometimes, so proud and full of them, I cannot even contain it.  And I know that I cannot take all the credit, I know that as the old adage goes - it takes a village - but as I watch them, I cannot help but be filled with such... gratitude.  That maybe I haven't done such a bad job after all.  That maybe, just maybe, I might even be halfway decent at this mothering thing. 

Oh, how I hope so. 

Oh, how much added importance it has.

Because just as my heart grew to make space for my own, incredibly it has expanded even more, to make room for this little one...

my godbaby, Graham, who was born last week.

I have loved his momma for a long time.  And when she and his daddy found out he was to be, they paid me the highest compliment a mother could ever hope to receive... they asked me to be his godmomma, to help them to watch over him, to protect and help teach him, to do what I do because it is, most simply, what I do.

So honored.  So grateful.  So crazy in love with this new little life.

My heart is... full. 

xoxo,
m