12 weeks today

12 weeks today.  And it seems like forever and not very long all at once.  I am looking at you in your car seat sleeping---and you keep trying to wake up and I keep trying to keep you asleep just so I can have a few minutes to myself---but at the same time I want you awake because I just adore your company.  This seems to be the theme of being a mom.  Needing some down time, but this intense love and wanting to be with you every second.

The way you have changed in the last few months is crazy.  I have watched you develop from this little adorable blob with no head control, no recognition besides instinctual to your surrounding and other people---to this incredible smiling, cooing, arms and legs flailing little person.  It’s crazy/scary how much you change every day.  What is even more crazy/scary is how much more I love you every day.

Sometimes when I take you out because I so desperately need some human interaction---I look at you there in your little car seat so small.  And I think---that is my whole world right there.  That is my whole world in this little seat.  And I get so scared of any harm coming to you---I get so scared that I could drop you, or a car could hit us, or even someone could sneeze on you and make you sick.  It makes me completely overwhelmed and I literally have to tell myself that I can’t protect you from everything, and that I shouldn’t protect you from everything.  I have to stop myself from crying when you cry.  Because your cry has a way of tearing at my soul…and so does your smile.  Your smile could move mountains little man….I look at you smiling and talking to someone and I just think my god you are so incredible.  How did I make something so incredible?  How did I get so lucky?

I think of your journey into this world a lot.  I think of you being born in our living room with the help of so many warm and wonderful women, and with your amazing fathers support.  I think of how when I met you it’s like I knew you all along. It’s like I had been waiting for you my entire life.  And when you were handed to me I felt whole.  I felt like everything was unimportant except for you, me, and your father.  The world could fall down, and we could lose everything---but all I needed was contained in that room.

I give up sleep, my body, eating meals alone, reading, naps, and being able to spend long amounts of time with your Dad.  It’s all frustrating…but let me tell you something.  I wouldn’t change a thing.  I would go without sleep, or eating, or the daily comforts of life just to have you.  I would do everything all over---I would deal with loss and grief, and being pregnant, and mental illness during pregnancy if the end result was always you. 

I feel a magnetic pull towards you.  When I am in the shower and I get 20 mins of being alone---which I so desperately need that I could cry out when I see your dad pull into the driveway.  When I have had you attached to me for 20 something hours and I just want to go shut the door to the bathroom, grab a snack and cry and laugh at the same time.  I hear you shout out and it takes literally all of myself to stay where I am.  I want to go comfort you; I never want you to have to be sad or angry.  I want to take every ounce of your hurt and just let you be a smiling happy boy.  I have to remind myself sometimes to take care of me.  Because all I want to do is take care of you.  I swear I could hear your cry from a million miles away. 

Here I sit watching you smile in your sleep.  Here I sit trying to get into words what has been floating around in my head since you were born.  What so many mothers feel.  I feel exhausted from how much I love you.  But the best kind of exhaustion.  I love you little one.