Lucky 13

I meant to write all week, several different posts, but now it’s Friday and part of each of them will have to end up here.

{Or not, I ended up just writing one, and I’ll write more later.}

Wednesday my lovely daughter turned 13. I was a mix of emotions. I felt raw. I spent much of the day remembering when she was born. Some of it remembering trying to become a mother. Some it in awe of how lucky I am to be her mother. All of it stewing in the bittersweet of the fact that she was once my sweet little cherubic first born and now she is a tall, lanky 13 year old who will be looking down on me soon enough.

I spent a lot of time looking through old picture of her on Shutterfly and crying.

I don’t usually get like this on her birthday. It was a mixture of the milestone of her becoming a teenager and the headspace I’ve been in more generally.

The grandparents came over for dinner on Wednesday. I got to run before cleaning the common areas and that really helped. My in-laws kept the kids until dinner which helped even more (the hours leading up to an event like this are hard to navigate).

My sweet girl cried three times while she opened presents – at the notes written in cards and when she saw her grandparents and replaced her favorite sweatshirt, which she lost a couple weeks ago. She really is a sweet kid, and I am so grateful to be her mom. Even better, I enjoy her company and I hope she continues to enjoy mine (or eventually enjoys it again, after adolescence. 😉

And with that I’ll press post, because this post should be its own thing, and I can put something else up later.