Every once in a while...

Garrett's new thing is for me to write him a note in his lunch.  This never occurred to me as the boy can't read, but apparently I'm the only delinquent mom in his class who fails to include a note in the lunch box. So I've started writing him little notes.  And I think his love language may be words of affirmation.  The first day I did it, the teacher wrote on his daily sheet that his favorite part of the day was his note.  I mean seriously, how sweet is that?  And how bad did that make me feel that that one little note made his whole day and I hadn't ever done it before?

But I digress...

The other night as I was packing yet another lunch (this is one of my least favorite chores), I wrote his little note and stuck it in on his sandwich container.  And for some reason this time I looked at the note again in his lunch box and it hit me.  I get to sign notes "Mom".  That's me.  I'm Garrett's mom.  It's amazing to me still, over five years later, that I got to have this little boy.  When we were in the throes of infertility I started a journal to write letters to my child.  I actually didn't write that many letters and couldn't tell you anything I wrote in them, but the most healing thing I did was sign them "mom".

So while most days are spent in the "toddler trenches" full of tantrums, whining, cleaning up messes, washing little clothes, and the like, every once in a while it hits me.  And I'm able to pause.  To stop and smell the roses.  The noses I wipe, the little hand prints I clean off the storm door, the little feet I put socks on all belong to my children.  Children that I longed for, wept over, and yelled at God for. I got my wish.

I'm a mom.  And I get to write little notes for my son's lunch box.