A glimpse back on the last year ...

Due to life circumstances I have neglected this blog over the past few months. I took some time off to enjoy the weather, to stop and smell the flowers, and to truly live.

My days are long and are spent with my chunk. Splashing in the water, getting muddy hands, and cuddling while reading his favorite stories are some of the things we have enjoyed over the last month or so.  Clark is getting bigger each day and has decided that he is ready to move! His ability to stand on his own has greatly developed and he is learning that those two chunky legs are meant for moving. Seeing him stand at the water table at the park for an extended period of time today was such a great feeling. He is really coming into his own.
Its hard to believe that this time last year I was dying to meet Clark. I wanted to know what his face would look like, what type of personality he would have, and what kind of mother I would be.

Clark is a great boy. People tell me all the time that Clark was never really a baby. Due to his birth weight, I always just treated him more like a boy. Putting baby clothes on him, things with feet or things that looked like a duck or frog, never looked quiet right on him. If I did put those gifts on him, he would glare at me as to say " what the hell are you making me wear". I would laugh and thought about the scene from " A Christmas Story" when Ralphie comes down those dank stairs wearing the bunny outfit his grandmother purchased for him knowing that he would just love it. 

That was my " Christmas Story" moment, a moment when I could completely see my mother looking down on me saying... "Ah Rachel, Clarky doesn't want to wear that duck outfit, he looks like a nut".

 In that split second I realized that no matter how far away she is, my mother is with me and is helping and guiding me to make me the best mother I can be. 

I have found this past year so rewarding but also difficult. It's difficult in the fact that each day can bring on a new struggle. Whether it is , finding out Clark had an allergy, difficulty with bowel movements, or waking up several times a night, you realize that something innately develops that makes you get up and go, makes you strive to help your child in any way possible. Don't get me wrong, there are times I loose my patience and have to yell, but I am trying to step away from the situation and see what can be done before I completely lose my mind. Clark can be demanding, but I have so much love for that chunk.. sometimes it hurts.

There have been so many things that I never even realized before having a child.  My thoughts when pregnant were that I must use cloth diapers because the landfills could do without my trillion diapers and that of course I would breastfeed. Both were a complete dud to me. It took me a long time to realize that not being able to produce milk wasn't my fault. But something that had to due with nature. You have a vision of what your child will do, who your child will be, what kind of mother you will be and when that little bundle of joy comes out you realize everything you planned for was thrown out the window :)

 "Motherhood is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you would have. It's about understanding that he is exactly the person he is supposed to be. And that, if you're lucky, he just might be the teacher that turns you into the person you are supposed to be."

This is a quote that I am trying to live by. Clark has taught me how to truly live, how to love and how to make myself happy.

In this past year people have come in and out of our lives but the ones that have stuck around I thank you from the bottom of my heart, you have helped shape my world. There are certain people that have been a major asset since the day Clark was born, without you I wouldn't be where I am on this hot July day. <3