heavy with you, i weighted myself down even further, filling my arms with the stones from the backyard and lugging them into the front.
over and over again...
a desperate attempt to encourage your coming.
2 weeks early because my dear friend was moving...
to the other side of the country and who knew when or if i would ever see her again on this firm ground beneath my feet.
and her van pulled away, and i stood with the other friend-just-as-sad and you rolled and kicked and stretched my skin and nestled in deeper.
i drove down the interstate 2 days ago.
the sun was beating down and the air was blasting strong and your two sisters were arguing over something and i glanced back at you...
mouth wide open in the biggest grin, pointing at every car i passed as you clasped your very own red one in your lap.
i moved over to pass the semi and glanced at the license plate and i smiled and my heart caught for just a moment,
as though two years had caught up with each other for the briefest of seconds.
i so desperately wanted him to be held in her arms before she moved to ontario.
and here, where i still feel lost at times, ontario had come to me.
oh, it's not the same as having her here...
not the same as him nestled in her arms...
but it was enough to bring memories flooding in of that 4 hour labor,
of him being placed in my arms.
seeing his disgruntled expression and calling him a grumpy old man.
feeling the weightless weight of him, cradling his head against my chest.
wondering, as the nurses took him out of my arms and the doctor was rushed in and i felt the life in me drain away, if that was all i was going to get with him; just a few brief moments.
and the fear i would never get to know him...
two years later, he laughs.
deep and from his belly.
he is curious and cautious.
bold and brave.
he loves strong:
nana and cars and dogs and *twinkle twinkle", his daddy and mid-afternoon snuggles.
he babbles and sings, he's defiant and obedient,
makes horrendous messes and tries to clean up after himself.
when he told me, the ultrasound tech, that it was a boy i was carrying deep in my womb i felt off-kilter...a little unnerved.
i didn't know how to be a mama to a boy.
and yet...
he has made it so very easy.
oh, he has entered the hitting phase.
and the yelling phase.
and the pouting-because-mama-said-no phase.
but he has only added to the crazy dynamic that makes us 5.
the last of the three is turning two...
happy birthday, sweet elias.
you fill my heart up full.
i love you so very, very much.
~mama
