Humbled

You know what goes great with a glass of gratitude? Humble pie. 

Humbling is the only way I can think to describe this week.

If you are reading this you might be thinking, "She should be resting." Or maybe "Brat. She can't call me back but she can blog!?!?!" I have excuses for both. I will rest easier after I get a few things off my chest. As far as the call backs, I am facing a cell phone bill that rivals a car payment. A fancy foreign car that comes with a middle aged gentleman who tips his hat to you and calls you Ma'am as he helps you in and then proceeds to drive you where ever you'd like to go. New minutes start Monday.

First things first.

I need to publicly apologize and thank my mom. For a lot of things. I didn't make a big enough deal over Mother's Day this year. I was wallowing in my own discomfort and preoccupation with becoming a mom again myself. Mother's Day should not be about me being a mom, but about the woman who is my Mother. Happy Belated Mother's Day Mom! In case you don't know, my mother has strength Greek gladiators would envy and has raised four very strong and very independent daughters whose lives are only what they are because of her.

Next, I just need to get it out there so I quit hemming and hawing over how I am going to come out with it. Before I say this please, please recognize that pity is equivalent to arsenic or cyanide to me, and I have hesitated talking about this to avoid the thought of anyone feeling sorry for us and to steel myself and protect you from my already overzealous mother-bear protective nature.

Erick was born with a cleft lip and palate. We were not aware of this prior to his birth, but that is not to say that we were not prepared. It seems that we have been preparing for this kidlet for a long time and I am grateful to those around us who seem to have been prepared in miraculous ways in our behalf. It makes my heart hurt with gratitude when I think of the ways people have been in the right place at the right time and listening when they were prompted to do something before understanding why. Keep reading and you're likely to hear about some of it.

While caught off guard and presented with some special challenges, I am humbled when I think about how different things could have been. Eating and breathing are his primary challenges right now (both of which is he earning a gold star at), along with some cosmetic issues, but from our current understanding they are temporary. Things are going to be busy and a little rough for a little while, but by the time he is in elementary school this will hopefully be a distant memory and we can look back and be grateful for the awesome people we've met, helped, and been helped by along the way. I might have given birth in a tub at home attended by midwives (which I would not have changed for the world), but you better believe that I am totally grateful for the state of the art technology and the care the medical world can provide. We're going to use it. You'll hear about some of that too, most likely.

This is my life. I wouldn't change any of it. I'd like a nap, but I can sleep when I'm dead. You'd miss me if I slept more and blogged less. I'd miss you. Talking to cyberspace has a Prozac-like quality I appreciate. I have to laugh when I think about the infertility/adoption/cranio-facial special needs advocacy this blog has taken. Along with all my random thoughts and feelings. Wow-zas.

I've saved the best for last.

Is this not the cutest damned face you've ever seen? He needed the little blip to make things fair for the rest of the world. A curly haired girl and a dark-haired boy. I have everything I've ever wanted. That was not such a humble thing to say, but I'm still grateful none the less.