keepin' it real

Grace is obsessed with my belly button. She pushes on it with her little finger all the while saying "tickle, tickle, tickle" and laughing hysterically :) She loves to "talk" to Hudson and will often run to me, lift my shirt, and say "a big, big hug for Hudson" wrapping her sweet arms around my belly...sometimes she'll do this when she's about to get in trouble **wink, wink**. How is it that they figure out all of our soft spots so early on?

I have some other "fancier" maternity pictures, but these impromptu ones - big belly and all - are the ones that warm my heart the most and make me dream of the two of them growing up close as brother and sister.


about motherhood...
Last week while out to dinner with my girlfriends, we started talking about motherhood. Now, this perspective comes from us - mothers with young children, so it may be quite different for those with older ones. Anyhow, we talked about how much guilt mothers seem to carry these days compare to prior generations. How we try to do it all, yet feel like it's never enough, or good enough in any one area. How often it's the "me time" that gets sacrificed in the mix. How there is so much arguing on the topic of working moms vs. stay-at-home moms when in reality most moms are doing the best they can for their children. How we doubted that our mothers/grandmothers second guessed themselves as much as we do in areas of discipline, organic vs. regular food LOL, where to send your kids to school, what activities to involve them in, how they're doing developmentally and so on and so on.

Now, I must say the mothers in my company that evening are all amazing moms in my eyes. They love their children unconditionally and truly care about their well-being. I see their eyes light up when they talk about their kids. I've seen the transformation occur from single gals, to married wifes, to beautiful mothers. And I wonder...I wish they could see themselves as I see them. But I'm guilty of it too. So when I stumbled upon this quote by Jill Churchill, I knew I needed to add it to my sidebar so I could read it every day and let it sink in...

The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.