mother.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how close Henry's family is, in geographic terms and in relationship terms.  I'm so grateful to be raising him close to his grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and fauxcousins and fauxaunts and fauxuncles.  Henry has 12 cousins, on my side of his family alone.  That does not include his 7 fauxcousins in Grand Rapids.  Ten of his cousins, and 17 of them if you include the Grand Rapids group, live at the farthest, an hour drive away.  This means that during the school year, we get to attend track meets, water polo matches, swim meets, cross country meets, field hockey games (I don't know what they are called.  Games?  Matches?), not to mention concerts and other performances when he gets older.  His cousins get so excited to see Henry when he comes to cheer them on and Henry just loves to yell and clap and critique.  His aunts and uncles have forgotten my name and most of them just consider me to be the chick that drives their nephew to visit them.  

Here's the thing.  One of the best thing about being a mom, and being Henry's mom, is the support and love that I've received from friends and family and friends that I now consider to be family. 

When Henry was born, several of my friends had young children.  Even though most of them were first time parents themselves, they were right by my side rooting for me and propping me up when I needed it.  Some of them live a million miles away but would email, call, and visit when they could.  They all realized that I was in for the crazy ride of my life.  They had recently done it as two-parent families and couldn't imagine what my life would be like as a single parent.  Henry is two-and-a-half-years-old and I am still getting calls and letters and emails and facebook messages of support and love from these people. 

It's amazing and wonderful and beautiful and I am so grateful because I get to teach this to Henry.  My son is living in this environment and my hope is that one day if he chooses to breed, he will teach it to his child.  If I do my job well, he won't know any other way to show his child. 

I truly believe all, okay so maybe most, mothers do the best they can with what they have.  We judge one another harshly and we knock each other down at times, but I am lucky that the mothers I know, the ones that I keep close and that hold Henry and I in their hearts, we understand that shit happens and we all love our children and want the best for the kiddos.  We know we will all fuck up at times and we will most likely all be shit on once or twice, literally and figuratively, and we will be there for each other. 

Motherhood.  It's really fucking beautiful.