Mother's Day

Mother's Day brings up a lot of mixed emotions for me. Of course I am grateful for the three wonderful children that I am blessed to have call me Mommy, Mom, Mama and sometimes MOMMMM! But for some reason this year I started thinking of the past. I thought about eight years ago when I was a childless mother, mourning the loss of Jack that previous January. Then I thought about two years ago when we had just completed our adoption paperwork and had started the wait for a referral. We didn't know it then but Aliyah was likely still with her birth mother as I celebrated Mother's Day with the boys. Then last year, we still hadn't seen Aliyah's picture yet but we were growing anxious as we waited for our referral which we would receive just a few weeks after Mother's Day. It is a wonderful feeling to have all of our children at home and healthy and thriving. However, I can't help but think of our little girl's birth mother who made the difficult decision to have someone else raise her child. I know she must think of her baby girl every day and miss her, how could she not? I wish I could tell her that her daughter, our daughter, is very much loved and cherished and that we have not forgotten her sacrifice.

The picture above is Aliyah decorating a potted plant at preschool that was my Mother's Day gift from her. I love the concentration as she glues on the little pieces of tissue paper. The teacher said that once she finished that she went around and helped the other children to finish their presents as well.

I also received an adorable hand painted mug from Noah and breakfast in a bag with a great card from Nick. Nick was so excited about his gift that he was standing next to my bed with it at 6:15 on Sunday morning! I was equally excited about it after I'd had my cup of coffee :)