I’m linking up with with Tracy, Galit , and Alison for Memories Captured today. They’ve asked us to honor our children – to take a moment and celebrate who they are and to be respectful of them when we write. I use this blog to share my own feeling about motherhood and my experience living with a mental illness, so I am always mindful of what my children might think when they read it many years from now. I want it to reflect how much I cherish them, but also how challenging it has been for me to become a parent and to balance my life with the life of this family. I hope they will take all the imperfections I share here and see their mother as more than just “mom,” instead a whole person with hopes, dreams, struggles, and bad days.
But when they read this post, (Hi, Doodlebug! Hi, Bean!) all I want them to see is how proud I am to be their mother. Because I am. Even on the hardest days and the longest nights, I am.
No1 turned four this past week. During her party, all the kids climbed into the giant-cardboard-box-turned-convertible and pretended to drive to Story Land. They all played so nicely together the whole party and No1 was in the middle of it all, being celebrated and lavished with the affection her bright personality brings to all of us. I love this picture. I love how she’s surrounded by her friends. I love the look of belonging I can see in her eyes. I hope that this is one birthday she will actually remember years from now, because it was incredible. She is incredible.
