If you look through the archives of my blog, you will find that I crawl into a blogging hole during the month of May (and the majority of June, apparently). Why, you ask?

Well, last May (last month), I was knocked off my feet and sat on the ground staring at this toddler that was my baby. Who is this child? How did he get here, with his opinions and willfulness? What happened to my little baby, the one that doesn’t demand to charge ahead of me and pave a path of adventure, to a world outside of Mommy?

The May before that, I was so, so, so unbelievably, incredibly, sadistically pregnant. I was almost two weeks late after bracing myself for an early delivery.  The whole nine months flew by until those last weeks that lasted FOREVER. Husband had long started to take his time off work . He took over a month off, and for weeks, we lived in this state of suspended reality. We were convinced I would give birth the next time I sneezed, and lived with our hospital bag by the door. At the same time, as I drifted further and further down the calendar, away from my due date, we were also convinced I was some strange medical phenomenon and would, in fact, be pregnant forever. They were going to have to put me in the book of world records for having the longest. Pregnancy. Ever.


I felt as though I had sailed along happily through my first nine months, smiling and waving as though I were on a parade float. Being pregnant is wonderful! I love every minute of this, even the Braxton hicks contractions and the ligament pain! …Then, suddenly, my parade float took a wrong turn down a condemned street, and I’m looking around thinking, “This aint’ what I signed up for…” And Collin, being the prankster that he is (he gets that spirit from his father. And from his mother.), decides to wait until four hours before my scheduled induction to begin labor spontaneously. Now that Collin is resembling a real live person these days instead of a squawking, crying infant creature, I am noticing that yes, he does enjoy a good joke. And if that joke is on his mother, he really enjoys it. Look at the way her whole face turns red when I repeatedly stick my finger up the grimey, rusty water faucet! Watch what happens when I chew on my dirty shoe again and again no matter how much it drives her crazy! The truly hilarious part is that when he does something mischievous, he does it with his eyes glued to my face, and he is smiling with his whole body, almost squirming in anticipation of my reaction. He glows with excitement. He is old enough to tease me, but still young and precious enough to wear his wild joy right there on his sleeve, for the world to see. He doesn’t censor himself, and his pleasure is so contagious that soon I’m giggling along with him.

So he’s a year old. A year. I spent his first birth month in disbelief, and reflection. I asked myself a lot of questions. I reminisced a lot. I thought about the looks of shock and/ or horror on my family and friend’s faces when I talk about sleeping in a family bed, extended breastfeeding, our plans to home school, my joy about being a full-time, stay-at-home mom. I thought long and hard about the way we’ve raised Collin thus far, the attitude I did it with, the fears (and fears, and fears) I’ve encountered. And also, the happiness.

So, I guess the other reason I've been absent from this blog is because I've been working on this one! It's my  new blog about Collin's home school adventures. We've just been busy bees all over the place these days, sorting, stacking, and playing.

Happy first birthday, Collin. Happy first year of being a mom, me.