On our own....

We are officially parents with no help now. My mom left today, back to California. And for the first time in a lot of years, I cried. Josh hugged me and reassured me that I was doing a great job and I shouldn't be scared. She is my security blanket, I told him. I tried not to rely on her TOO much while she was here. I didn't want to get used to having her around and then not knowing what to do when I was on my own again. She does have "magic hands" as she likes to call them. She is one of the only people who can calm Hunter down when she seems inconsolable. She's way better at it than me and Josh. It must be some weird Grandma smell she has (and no I don't mean an old lady smell, I mean special grandma smell).

I have a new appreciation for my mom now. It's something I never would have realized had I not given birth to my own child. I don't know how my mom managed to stay calm through all the cuts and scrapes and tumbles and tears and heart breaks my brother and I had growing up. Just thinking of Hunter having her 2 month shots makes me break out in hives (not really, but something like that). My mom was a single mother of two kids. She worked as an office manager in a dental office during our early years and later joined the Sheriff's Department where she has been a deputy for 20 years now. All the while she made sure to make EVERY birthday special, every holiday she created some sort of magic, whether it was catching leprachaun's on St. Patrick's Day, finding the magic reindeer during Christmas or screeching with excitement at the Easter Bunny foot prints (which turned out to be baby powder) during Easter. She is an amazing mother. I really can't even put into words how I feel or how much I love and appreciate her. I hope that I can become the mother to my daughter that she has been for me.