*I applogize now. I know I promised to not put any more tear jerkers on here but I lied... ha ha.... sorry Kristi!!!*I had this poem in my email inbox, saved from forever ago. It made me teary so I had to share... Congrats to the recent new mommies and here's a poem for all of us who have kids, or someday will.
Precious Babies
© By Valerie R. Peavler
I always knew babies were precious, soft, and sweet.
I always knew babies had the tiniest hands and feet.
I always knew babies were fun to rock and hold.
I always knew babies meant feedings, and more laundry to fold.
I thought I was very well prepared to be a mother.
I thought my baby would come and be like all the others.
I have changed my way of thinking from what I thought I had known.
My feelings about babies have changed some, and grown.
I never knew my baby would be the sweetest thing I had ever seen.
I never knew she'd steal my heart without having to do a thing.
And her father'I never knew my love could explode for this man
Just from watching him pat her back, which was much smaller than his hand.
I never knew hearing her cry would completely break my heart.
I never knew every thought would include her, even when we're apart
I never knew the consuming peace of my baby asleep against my neck.
Or the terror of putting a hand on her back when she's sleeping, just to check.
I never new it would be painfully wonderful as she learned to crawl and walk.
I never knew how blissful it would be hearing 'Mama' as she started to talk.
I never knew I would second guess every decision I make.
I never thought I would cry putting candles on her birthday cake.
Yes, I always knew babies were precious, soft, and sweet.
I always knew babies had the tiniest hands and feet.
I always knew babies were fun to rock and hold.
I always knew babies meant feedings, and more laundry to fold.
I know now it takes all your heart, sweat, and tears to be a mother.
And somehow my baby is more precious than any other.
I know now there is more to motherhood than I could ever see.
I thank God for this beautiful mixture of my husband and me.
This one makes me cry... sorry but it does. Most know that we've been through a lot with Alexander (although I never consider him to be a challenge at all, his problems are so minor for what they could be.) This one is beautiful and makes me think of how grateful I am... and how I have had a glimpse at what it must be like and am grateful...
Some Mothers Get Babies with Something More
by Lori Borgman, Columnist and Speaker
My friend is expecting her first child. People keep asking her what she wants. She smiles demurely, shakes her head, and gives the answer mothers have given throughout the pages of time. She says it doesn't matter whether it's a boy or a girl. She just wants it to have ten fingers and ten toes. Of course, that's what she says. That's what mothers have always said. Mothers lie.
Truth be told, every mother wants a whole lot more. Every mother wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin. Every mother wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly. Every mother wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby development chart on page 57, column 2). Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions. She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class. Call it greed if you want, but we mothers want what we want.
Some mothers get babies with something more.
Some mothers get babies with conditions they can't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a palette that didn't close. Most of those mothers can remember the time, the place, the shoes they were wearing and the color of the walls in the small, suffocating room where the doctor uttered the words that took their breath away. It felt like recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming and it knocked the wind clean out of you.
Some mothers leave the hospital with a healthy bundle, then months, even years later, take him in for a routine visit, or schedule her for a well check, and crash head first into a brick wall as they bear the brunt of devastating news. it can't be possible! That doesn't run in our family. Can this really be happening in our lifetime? I am a woman who watches the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely sculpted bodies. It's not a lust thing; it's a wondrous thing. The athletes appear as specimens without flaw - rippling muscles with nary an ounce of flab or rat, virtual powerhouses of strength with lungs and limbs working in perfect harmony. Then the athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the contents and pulls out an inhaler.
As I've told my own kids, be it on the way to physical therapy after a third knee surgery, or on a trip home from an echo cardiogram, there's no such thing as a perfect body. Every body will bear something at some time or another. Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, medication or surgery. The health problems our children have experienced have been minimal and manageable, so I watch with keen interest and great admiration the mothers of children with serious disabilites, and wonder how they do it.
Frankly, sometimes you mothers scare me. How you lift that child in and out of a wheelchair 20 times a day. How you monitor tests, track medications, regulate diet and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear. I wonder how you endure the cliches and the platitudes, well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike. I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy pieces like this one - saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you're ordinary. You snap, you bark, you bite. You didn't volunteer for this, you didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling "Choose me, God! Choose me! I've got what it takes," You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so please, let me do.
You have the strength of a draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil. You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July, carefully counterbalanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule. You can be warm and tender one minute, and when circumstances require, intense and aggressive the next. You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability. You're a neighbor, a friend, a stranger I pass at the mall. You're the woman I sit next to at church, my cousin and my sister-in-law. You're a woman who wanted ten fingers and ten toes, and got something more.
You're a wonder.
Another funny story, at my BIL's wedding recently I commented that one of my nieces is so skinny (in an Alex way... made me feel better that he wasn't the only petite one but she's 7...) She heard me and says "yes, I am skinny' quite proudly and then shows me the side view of her tummy! Then the 8 year old sister runs over to show me just how skinny she is too! I was surprised and a little disturbed by that but then their mom did teach them this (she has a right to be proud of her thin body but sheesh!) Then later one of the girls came over, patted my tummy and said "you're pregnant". I certainly am not but was so embarassed. Her sister comes over and says "it's okay, you just had a baby..." (I almost fell over laughing at that one). Shoot, Ariana has to stay 3 dude.... I don't want her to learn this stuff!!! 
