Bean,  Changes,  Family,  Flashbacks,  Holidays,  Marriage Confessions,  Parenting

A Year of Motherhood in Pictures: Away We Grow!

The start of the new year brought new tricks for Bean. He started crawling, giving hugs and kisses, waving hello and goodbye, and giving high fives.
The first of the year brought a really cold winter and Bean was sick for most of January. We stayed home together for a LONG time. And then Bean was in the hospital for a couple days after that. January was no fun.
By the end of January, Bean was back to his normal, playful self (minus about 5 pounds of weight he lost in the hospital).
We finished out our first winter together by spending lots of nights snuggled up next to the space heater together. It was a great, relaxed time together as a family and I finally started to feel like I knew what I was doing as a mom.
By early spring, Bean was crawling really fast and was into everything. We pulled out his pack 'n play for the first time since we brought him home from the hospital. Bean was none too happy.
In March, we sold our house and began to say goodbye to our good friends in Connecticut as we prepared to move across the country to be closer to family. This was our goodbye dinner. I cried all the way home.
Bean helped us pack for our big move.
And when we finally got to Florida, he seemed to have no trouble adjusting.
And any time I had trouble adjusting, I just had to take one look at Bean and I'd know that he was the reason we were here and everything would work out just how it was supposed to.
And just when I thought things were settling down a bit, Bean fell on our trip to Atlanta and broke his front two teeth clean in half. He didn't seem to care. He's hard core, my baby.
We finally got his first big boy haircut.
And we enjoyed time home with Daddy before he had to start work.
We discovered how big Bean's voice can be. And how small our rental house is.
Bean got up with us at 4am to see the shuttle launch in Cocoa Beach.
And Bean and I danced our way through Disney's character breakfast conga line.
Though he was unsure about the lei.
We had professional family portraits taken with our new friend, Jenn.
And Bean finally outgrew his swing.

Yes, in the one year that I have been a mom, there have been a lot of changes in my life.  And before I had Bean, change was something that I hated.  Change meant new things and new things came with fear for me.  But with Bean in my life now, change holds endless possibilities and new adventures around every corner.  And I will always love him for bringing that to my life.

As a wife, I am not perfect.  And as a mother I think I am even less so.  But every single day I wake up to a baby that is happy to see me for no other reason than simply because I am his mom.  Before Bean, I was just a girl who fell in love with a boy.  But through Bean, we have become a family.  And that is what Mother’s Day means to me now.

This weekend, like every other day, I am not just thankful to be a mother.  I’m thankful for the boy who made me a mother.

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