For the Almanac: Mama Notes, etc.

May 8, 2015, at approximately 4:45pm, the black flies hatched in Lyons Falls.  I so enjoyed my short season of heavenly weather, when being outside, and having our home all open to the outdoors, was nothing but pleasure.  This is the "etc."  This is just for posterity, so I can look back and compare seasons at some point in the future.  That's the beauty of almanacs :0)
This is a whimsical version of a black fly, on the Adirondack Carousel in Saranac Lake.  

On this day one year ago, I was eating Mother's Day breakfast at Minella's Diner in Wayne, PA.  I was there with my hubby and boys, my own mom and dad, and my brother and Miss Kathryn--celebrating not only mama-hood (and grandma-hood), but my brother's college graduation.  What a weekend!

On this day five years ago, even though Lincoln hadn't quite arrived yet, people began celebrating me as a mother for the first time.  So now, for 1/6th of my life, I have been a mama.  That doesn't sound long enough for how life-changing and all-consuming being a mama is.  It's wonderful, and hard, and always a paradox of speed and slowness.  

Here are my boys now; hit fast-forward between the previous picture and this.  Taken at the Utica Zoo, May 4, 2015.

Today I am 18 weeks pregnant with my last baby, and it is a treasure.  In two weeks we'll find out if we'll welcome another beautiful boy or the marvel of a baby girl into our family.  This process, more than just being a marvel, a miracle, is also a strange sadness.  I am carrying our last baby, and I have friends carrying their last babies, and in a very real way, it's (the beginning of) the end of an era.  That's pretty intense.  But full of good things.