Why I Love Being a Mommy

For Dale's first Father's Day, I gave him this frame:


And since the writing's pretty small, here's a shot of just the words:


So, you wonder, how does this have anything to do with why I love being a mom?!? Give me a second. I'll get to that part. You know by now that I get long-winded when I tell stories sometimes!

Today, Macie laid down for nap at 1:30p or so. Ivie followed shortly thereafter around 2:15p. And I, in my favorite Saturday afternoon ritual, played online for a bit (planning for Macie's 2nd birthday party) and made it to my bed around 2:45p (I'd say, although I didn't really look at the clock).

Except for a brief cry-out by Macie around 3:15p (after which she fell back asleep), the three of us slept peacefully until 4:15p. I'm not sure why (because there wasn't any noise), but that's when I opened my eyes and glanced toward my door. Ivie was peaking in at me. I said, simply, "Hey, Iv.". She didn't say a word. Just came to my side of the bed and crawled in under the covers alongside of me, snuggling up against my chest.

She still didn't speak. Which, for those of you that know Ivie, is really strange. About a minute later, her breathing calmed into a regular pattern, and I could tell she'd drifted back off to sleep. And I'm not joking when I tell you that this is the first time that she has snuggled and napped with me in my bed (we're afraid of starting a habit we can't break, so we've never allowed it). And, to make it crazier, it came AFTER a 2-hour nap in her own room!

And this, I experienced for the first time today, is one reason why I love being a mommy:

(taken with my cell phone as proof, since I couldn't get up and Dale wasn't responding to my texts to bring the camera upstairs)

(taken after I'd successfully crawled out of the other side of the bed and gone down to get the camera)

So, back to the reason why I started this post with the picture of the frame I gave Dale. The 10 reasons why Ivie loved her daddy 4 years ago could have easily be re-phrased into reasons why Dale loved being a daddy. As we go through daily life, there are so many experiences when I think to myself, "This is why I love being a mommy.". But, until now, I've never written them down. So they bunch all together in my brain and become fleeting thoughts, pushed aside by the "here and now".

So I'm planning to start an ongoing series on my blog. Like Wordless Wednesday, Simplify Sunday (haven't done THAT one in a while!), and Show-and-Tell. A place to record, "for the history books", all the reasons why I love being a mom. Starting now.

1. When your pre-schooler crawls in your bed after her nap, snuggles up against you, and falls back to sleep.

I'm warning you, my numbers might literally reach into the millions. Because I don't think there's any title on earth I'd rather have.