Celebrating a New Mother This Mother’s Day

This week is one of my favorite weeks of the year. It holds two of my favorite events: the SouthCoast Women’s Forum and the Women’s Fund Tiara 5K, and it is also the week I get to celebrate the awesome Moms in my life. Though not a Mom myself (unless you count cats, which I DO, by the way) I am especially blessed with the Moms I do have in my life. There are too many to mention, but in addition to the obvious ones – my own Mom, who I couldn’t possibly say enough about, but attempted to last Mother’s Day, and my mother-in-law, who I have not yet blogged about, but who is gracious enough to not be mad about it because she’s awesome, and lastly but not leastly, a NEW Mom this year, my best friend Monica, who is so fiercely in love with her new daughter that it inspires me, gives me chills and makes me insanely jealous all at the same time.

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Don’t get me wrong. I am blissfully childless 99.99% of the time, but there are moments when I mourn the lack of those precious Momma moments that I do not have in my life. Even though she cannot yet speak, you can see that there is an amazingly deep level of understanding and connection between Monica and her eight-month-old Catia. It amazes and overwhelms me sometimes. Especially when I consider the connection that I have with my Mom now, as an adult – how she gets me better than anyone else in the world, how she’s weird like me, how she’s known me since before I even knew myself – and I imagine what Monica’s relationship with her daughter will be like when Catia is my age. I don’t envy the sleepless nights and the smelly diapers (who would?), but I do envy that life-long relationship. I don’t think there are any other relationships quite like mother and daughter. It doesn’t help that Monica also happens to be like, REALLY GOOD at the whole Mom thing too, which makes me even more jealous. I mean, I can cat-Mom like a boss, but children frankly terrify me.

baby-203048_1280Despite my child-rearing shortcomings, Monica and her husband Manny were crazy enough (or let’s call it optimistic enough) to give my husband and I the great honor of being named as Catia’s Godparents. Ron and I were so shocked when they asked that I’m pretty sure we just stared dumbly at them for several minutes, thinking we misheard. I think we’ve recovered somewhat gracefully since then, with the strict understanding that Manny and Monica must live forever and that our responsibilities will mainly include: spoiling the crap out of Catia for the rest of our lives, educating her about dinosaurs, taking her to the zoo and playing in the dirt (those are my jobs) as well as introducing her to sports, both professional and first-hand varieties (those are my husband’s jobs).

Our mission begins later this month when we plan to take Catia to meet, feed, and pet the bears at the Buttonwood Zoo. I know what you’re thinking…only an idiot would take an eight-month-old to meet a bear, right? Well, that’s just how I roll, so, keep your fingers crossed everyone gets to keep all of their fingers and we don’t get fired from Godparenting on our first outing! We’re hoping to keep this gig for life.

So to Monica and all of the Mom’s out there doing your Mom thing, I wish you the happiest of Mother’s Days! You deserve to be celebrated, honored, and adored every day.

Mothers Day Pic