It’s good to have Toby back so now we can get back to our normal routine around here. HA ha hahahahah! What normal routine? Just kidding. It is really good to have him back though.

I don’t think Baby Bug has shut up for one minute since he has been home. I think she saved up every bit of information that happened over the two-week span that he was gone and is now trying to tell him all about everything. When she catches her breath and forgets what she was talking about, she’ll just start rattling off about whatever she sees. (I wonder where she gets that from?)

“Daddy. Did you know that the light is bright? See the light? See the light?! That light up there on the ceiling? And the heater, it has polkadots on it. It’s warm and cozy. I like to sit by it when I’m cold. And Pouncy-wounce, he is the cat. I lub Pouncy-wounce. He had the sneezy-sneezes… He had to go to the cat doctor and get a bandaid.” etc. etc. etc.

And on and on and on she goes until she falls asleep mid-sentence. I love that she is a chatterbox but it just cracks me up sometimes. I remember driving around in the car with her and talking to her non-stop when she was little little. She would just look at me and suck away on her pacifier and I would wonder what it would be like to have her talk back to me someday. Well, I wonder no more. Now I can hardly get a word in edgewise.

If I do interrupt her, she furrows her eyebrows at me and glares at me as if to say, “Mommy you’re getting me off track. Please be quiet so I can finish my train of thought.” If I ignore her (which I often do since her chatter is so endless it can blend in like white noise after a while) she will poke me and yell, “Mommy! Hear me!”

Oh, my little dear child with the voice of a very large lion.

Toby is finding it all very charming. But then he’s only been home for a day. I give him a week and he’ll closing his office door again. It’s kind of hard to get work done when you have a running commentary going on all day long. Good thing we’re heading out to the sticks on Thursday to get ready for my nieces tenth birthday party. I think by then Toby might need a little break!

Flashlight from secretagentjo on Vimeo.

Here’s a little taste… though she toned it down a bit for the camera. Also, I apologize for the wobbliness. Bad camera holding. I know.

I am agreeing with my old friend Nicole that mother’s day is not just a day but a weekend. I didn’t mean it to be this way but since it is just Baby Bug and I and I can do whatever I want (since I’m the boss afterall) we made it that way. Really, every day has been mother’s day.

When I think about mother’s day, so many days come flooding to my memory. Those mornings that my brother and I would get up super early and sneak out of the house to steal dewy sweetpeas from our neighbor’s yard so we could put them in a vase and surprise my mom. Those many crafts we made at school… the years we forgot, the years we remembered and then as we got older how we over-compensated for the years we forgot with super-expensive gift certificates to the spa… So many memories.

I think the day I most remember of all my mothering days was that second day in the hospital. The late morning after she was born. Toby had gone home to sleep after staying up all night long and it was just me and her. The nurses were gone. I picked up my camera and took this picture:

I’m so glad Baby Bug was born in the digital age. I’m so glad I’m the kind of girl who has her camera handy at all times. I don’t think if I was still shooting film, with my big fat lens, I would have even brought it to the hospital. I know I wouldn’t have stuck it in her face. But my digital camera is small, so small I thought nothing of digging it out of my purse and documenting this wonder that I held tangible in my arms for the first time in my life.

I don’t mean to be selfish and push Toby out of this moment but it truly was the most beautiful moment in my entire life. It was just me and her and I knew the rest of my life was never ever going to be the same. I remember everything. I remember those flowers that my in-laws sent. I remember the view out the hospital window. I remember staring at her until I thought my eyes would break. It was the most precious of times. When I talk to expectant mothers now, I try and try to explain what that day was like for me but my words fall short.

I think that was the best mother’s day of my life.

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try and live up every other mother’s day in my life. Oh no! We are going to pull out all the stops and have a whole weekend of mother’s day stuff. Like chocolate pancakes for breakfast and picking flowers from our neighbor’s yard. Painting all day and then pizza for dinner! And that was only Saturday! I have no idea what we’ll be doing Sunday.

Happy Mother’s Day everybody! Go give your mom a hug!