There She Goes 1/5/12

It seems I write an entire post about her each time she’s here or after she’s gone (like today). But every single time, she does it – she gives me reason to say “Thank you, Mom! I can’t imagine my life without you.”, to never stop loving her the way I do right now, to show my appreciation .

(Jake came in to show them what he painted at Sips n' Strokes - his final bus trip with classmates of 2011.)

She swoops in and does laundry, reads all of his favorite books over and over, cleans mine and Jim’s shower because it’s the one thing she knows I let go the most, calls me and describes exactly what he’s doing so I can “see” him too, and cheers me on as I make a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday theme (and all of those things I’ve been pinning on Pinterest for months and months) come to life.

And this time, she took the youngest from a very bottle-dependent-little to a total-sippy-cup-slurper of whole milk (I’ll take credit for that one. We made the switch from formula to whole milk - a week-long process - just before Christmas Day, and it was effortless.). And she did it in just one day! I was completely prepared to let him suck his bottle until he decided to quit it on his own. In fact, I just told one of my besties at dinner a few weeks ago not to judge me when I was the mom with the big kid gettin’ all the stares and whispers sayin’ stuff like, “How in the world does she still let him drink from a bottle at his age? Gasp! Really? She needs to just take that thing away from him cold turkey. Won’t that ruin his teeth and all?! Gasp!”

I have absolutely no idea how she’ll top this one, but I’m sure she’ll somehow manage.

She always does.

I owe her all my love and gratitude for doing what was, to me, impossible.

Mom, you are seriously my hero right now!

And I love you today more than ever (which is unlike taking the bottle from Baby, definitely not impossible).