Two years ago I wrote this privately after celebrating my first Mother’s Day as a mother. It still holds true today, so I thought I would share it with all of you.

May 2008:

Before baby, I thought Mother’s Day was a rather lightweight holiday – and barely a holiday at that. More of a day in May that needed a special meaning assigned to it because May was running short on holidays. The cards I would send to my mother were thoughtful, but more selfish in my understanding of the day… I would thank my mother for being such a good mom to me, making growing up such a memorable experience for me, for loving me in spite of my being such a pain, etc.

This year, Mother’s Day’s meaning became almost overwhelming to me.

In reflecting on life since baby, I thought back to when Anouk was first born, and how I was on the verge of tears many days from the lack of sleep; how when Anouk had her ritual evening fussing, I walked the streets with her for hours singing to her until she fell asleep; how when Anouk decided one morning to get up at 4am, wide awake, to play, I was the one playing with her; how when Anouk went into shock after her first immunization shots and cried uncontrollably for hours, I didn’t put her down for an entire day; how I can recognize and/or hear Anouk’s cry anywhere – be it when I’m in the shower, or when I’m having a massage and I hear a baby cry outside (I once was having a massage and my mother-in-law walked by with Anouk crying and I knew it was her); how I’ve called the doctor in a panic on more than one occasion; how I’ve taken the bus for months because when I drive, Anouk cries in her carseat because she can’t see me facing backwards; how I’ve made so many choices because there is nothing I want more than to see my little girl smile.

And after all of that reflecting, and thinking, “Wow! I do a lot for this kid!” I realized… my mother did the same thing for me – and that all mothers do the same things for their kids. And it’s only after you’ve made the same sacrifices, and felt the same love for your child, can you possibly understand.

Since this realization, I have been taking close to an eternity to write my mother her Mother’s Day card because I can’t quite put into words just how important she and everything she has done are to me – I bought her a card that says on the cover “I Adore You,” because at this point, that is it in a nutshell: I adore my mother. I loved her before, and I adore her now.

So Mother’s Day and its purpose has come full circle – it is a day of reflecting on mothers and our relationships with them… and appreciating what we now know they have done for us, but maybe never really recognized. So Mom, this year, I get it.

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