My heart is so full, and has been for the past couple of weeks. Thanks to participation in an ATC program, Nina is already graduated from high school! Words cannot express how much joy and pride I feel in her accomplishments. She has worked hard, has not always (hardly ever) enjoyed that hard work, and I hope I've expressed to her how proud I am to be her mother.
Anna transferred to Ogden High and is happy. I've never seen her so happy. She has a very sweet best friend. She just got her grades in the mail the other day--ripped open the envelope and stuck it on the fridge. She is proud, and we are delighted. All A's, two B+'s. She has always been my Annabelle, snuggly and feisty and fun. It is a joy to be her mother.
Gunder brings home 100% scores pretty consistently on his PRE-tests for both Math and Language Arts. He's reading more every day. At PTCs, his teacher told me how well he is doing, and I am so pleased. He also just finished a wrestling class that Mark's been taking him to at the high school, where his coach and older fellow wrestlers are so incredibly patient with a little guy who very much wants to be a big, cool guy. He has melted my heart from the first moment I heard his heart beat, and I have been enchanted with him ever since. I so love being his mother.
Sometimes motherhood sucks. Sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world, and it's no mystery why some species choose to eat their young in the nest. Children take the best we have to offer and suck us completely dry. We worry, we fret, we steam and stew, we swear, we get murderous, we lose brain cells from the moment we first bring them home from the hospital or the birth mom.
And it is the most glorious of gifts. The love a mother feels for a child goes beyond all comprehension. It defies description. Sometimes you just grab and kiss them, amidst a flurry of protestations and noises of distress. You look at them when they're scrubbed and clean, even when they're 18 and 16, scrubbed and clean, and feel a connection, a sense of overwhelming emotion. You remember when you brought them home and you think that maybe the loss of a few brain cells isn't such a bad thing.
My heart and my joy are so full.
