Happy Mother's Day! My First as a mom.

Mother's Day has always been a bit of a sad day for me.  As many of you may know, my mom passed away when I was 6 of breast cancer.  She was an amazing person and so many people have told me so many wonderful things about her. I don't have many memories of her as I was so young but I love hearing stories about her. Here is a picture of my mom pregnant with me.  She was making a cake with my sisters.

I also found a fantastic picture of my mother breastfeeding me, however, I'm just not sure I want to post that on the internet for all to see. :)  I do want to make sure I have pictures of my daughter and I breastfeeding because someday she might want to see them.  One of my favorite pictures of my mom and me is this next one.  It's one of the few of us together that I have and I just love how happy we look.

 On Mother's Day, I always think of my mom and the fact that I haven't had her with me on Mother's Day for 24 years.  In the past, I've gotten through this day in thinking of the women in my life who stepped up and mothered me.  When you don't have a mom of your very own, often times your friends share their moms with you.  This isn't always an easy process but I did spend a lot of my childhood at my friend's houses with their moms.  One in particular is my friend Lynley's mom.  I remember so many weekend's of my childhood spent as their fourth child and 2nd daughter.  When I was in high school, I spent lots of time with my best friend Annemarie, and hence spent lots of time with her mother as well.   Even though, I think Annemarie did her own mothering of me. hehe...just don't tell her I said that.  :) 

The ones that have been there for my whole life and have always been like moms, best friends, sisters, and so much more to me are my four sisters.  Each one of them means more to me than I could ever tell them.  They each are so special and I'm not sure how I could have gotten through all these years without them.  They have wiped up my tears, made me laugh, taken me along on their adventures, and taught me how to be a mom.  They were bridesmaids in my wedding even when they all said that they didn't want to be and pleaded with me to ask my friends...but they gave in when they realized how important it was to me.  They were there when I gave birth to my own child and helped me get through those tough first weeks at learning to be a mom.  I will forever be grateful that my parents had each and every one of them and for teaching them the skills they needed to be there for me.  Here is a picture of us with my hubby and dad at my wedding.

Today's Mother's Day was both bittersweet at usual but was more sweet than bitter for the first time ever.  This year, I am a Mother to the most amazing little girl I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  It's my very first Mother's Day I got to focus on what it means to be a mom and not what it meant to be without my mom.  My husband wrote out two cards to me.  One from himself and one from our daughter.  They were the sweetest cards and made me tear up.  I enjoyed my day spent with my girl and my family.  She made me laugh a lot and just watching her explore the world makes me so happy.

She also will forever remind me of my mom because when it came to naming her...only one name came to mind for me and that was my mom's name Carmen.  My sister Cristina gave me a wonderful present this Christmas and until I opened it I had not thought of myself this way.  She gave me a necklace with two charms.  One charm says "Carmen's daughter" and the other "Carmen's mom."  It's kind of amazing that both my mother/daughter relationships in my life are with a person named Carmen. :)

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Mother's Day and that you think of all the blessings in your life.  Thanks for stopping by my blog and hope you made sure that you celebrated all the "mother" relationships in your life...even your furbaby ones! ;)