deep breath....

The moment, I mean THE moment that a mother holds her baby in her arms, whether that baby was born vaginally, via c-section, born through the adoption process or by surrogate mother, the mother instantly starts holding her heart in her arms.

My heart started beating on the outside of my body on December 6, 2008 and from that moment on I could not imagine ever letting go. I am one of the lucky ones who gets to stay home and watch my heartbeat grow and soar, learn and discover. Sure that choice means that as I sit here my hair is in dire need of salon attention, I am adorned in less than fashionable clothes and the computer I type on is running in dumb down mode that doesn't even support a printer. We never take family vacations, instead we can make a pretty darn good fort getaway right here in our living room that holds mismatched hand me down furniture and 130 year old windows that probably need to be replaced. We have one car and that means on days like tomorrow Ella and I will have to stay home and discover things right here on P Street.

For the last 2 years and 9 months (as of Monday!) I have loved every bit of having my princess pie with me. I have loved having my little side kick through out the day to day routine and in fact would be willing to give up more to continue to make it happen. I think that is why it was so hard today to leave my heart standing in the middle of her classroom with tears streaming down her sweet little face. Blurred by my own tears I made it back down the stairs and out to the car before I could change my mind and scoop her up and just say the hell with it, mommy will home school. When your heart is on the outside of you it often times is just full of joy and wonder and amazement and love. But when your little heartbeat breaks your heart doesn't tear or break it shatters!

I sat in the parking lot of the doctor's office for 15 minutes composing myself to go in and have my 24 week appointment (oh gosh I am going to have to do this again with Thing 2 some day!) and reminding myself that it all will be ok. There will come a day that drop off is a simple back handed wave and a bye mom, then before I know it, its going to be the stay in the car mom so you don't embarrass me. And then oh God it's going to be the mom can you come with me to drop my baby off so I have someone there (Thanks Mom for coming today!). Boy does life speed up when your heart is on the outside.

I just need to remember to breathe deep and take it all in. My baby is grown up now and I need to let her go learn and discover without me. She is so smart I have no doubt she will soak it all in, but in the mean time I guess I need to get out the glue and put myself back together and hope that next Tuesday its a little less heart shattering....

LIVE LAUGH BREATHE!!!!!!!!