Happy Birthday Meghan!

Oh honey, how did EIGHTEEN come so fast?

You’ve been waiting to be an official adult since about two days after you were born. I told you this day would come. So, how do you feel? I’ll tell you how I feel-melancholy. I am having a hard time staying in the present. My mind keeps going back in time, eighteen years ago…

When the nurse gently placed a swaddled bundle in my arms I couldn’t believe what I saw, fuzzy blond hair sticking up all over, and dimples so deep I would forever tease how I wanted to use them for my personal cereal bowls.

You gave me my first taste of mommyhood and I loved it. A blue-eyed blessing who squirmed until she got comfy in my lap, giggled at silly mommy-faces and squealed with toddler joy when you laid eyes on me after my long day at work. I fell in love with you each and every day.

Eighteen years ago my eyes were opened to something I’d never experienced before. Holding you, I understood what my own mother felt for me. Mother’s love. The physical heaviness of it placed in my very arms on the second floor of an old hospital in Castro Valley, California.

I purchased a journal as soon as I knew you were growing in me. I thought I’d include a little bit of what I wrote after your birth: