Blackbird Ink Photography by Nina Seibert

It’s 7:20am exactly as I’m writing this. Max has already run himself out the door to school. Tyler left hours ago. It’s just the girls now for another half an hour or so. And, even as I’ve been up for only about an hour, this morning has been really hard. Especially with Lia. She’s just had kind of a rough morning and I’m trying really hard not to let it set the mood for the whole day. Currently she is sitting at the counter refusing to eat her breakfast because she claims I’m just a mean mom who makes her eat waffles every day.

Lia is the free spirited child in this family. Her little personality has been there since the moment she decided she was going to be born on her own time. I feel like a cliche when I write this, but she really does add a dimension of crazy life-loving energy to our family that wasn’t there before we had her. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we weren’t all walking around depressed about life. But the way she gets excited about things and is happy (most of the time) is contagious.

But not this morning. This morning she is in a grumbly grumpy nasty little heap on the floor under the kitchen table. We all have those days, right? I may or may not have had one yesterday. At some point.

In my own attempt to try to ignore the tantrum forming on my kitchen floor I decided to glance at some happy smiley baby pictures of her, you know, to remind myself that she really is an adorably cute sassy sweet little girl. And I came across this photo.

She was about 9 months old here, almost 10. And it was the first time she said mama. I remember this afternoon. It was going along a lot like this morning has been — tantrums, tiredness, defiance, grumpiness. But in a moment of, I don’t know, probably distraction, she said mama. She had been saying dada for a while. Her and her daddy had an amazingly special connection very early on in her life, something that I always felt the two of us missed.

But this day.

She said mama. And looked at me. And kept saying it. And smiled and laughed and came over to me and hugged my legs and I just remember feeling so excited and all the grumpiness and tiredness melted away.

And this morning it had the same effect on both of us. When Lia peeked up from her tear-filled mass of bedhead and jammies she saw a bright-eyed little baby and ran over to get a closer look. I pulled her onto my lap and told her about this day. About how proud I was of her when she said it.

She turned and buried her head in my neck, her little arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders and said, mama, I love you, and with a big smile ran off to finish her breakfast and play with her toys.

And as this Mother’s Day approaches, the moments like those tear drenched tantrums on the kitchen floor  melt away and the sweet and beautiful only remain in our swiftly growing mother hearts.