Growing Edges
Aja-lexaArchive for November 12, 2008
If You’re Happy and You Know It
The date on this blog entry indicates that I am writing this on November 12 (because of Greenwich Mean Time — or “GMT”), but I am writing this on November 11. Veteran’s Day. My sister-in-law’s birthday. The date I first learned I was a mommy.
I remember dates. Specific dates about obscure things. It’s a thing about me that my husband thinks is amusing and downright amazing.
This evening I said to him while he worked at the computer, “So, seventeen years ago today we began our journey into parenthood.” Pause. I could tell he was scanning his brain, then he looked at me kind of confused because our oldest is sixteen and said, “Wait, say that again?”
“We found out we were pregnant with Acia seventeen years ago today.”
November 11 never passes without my remembering that in 1991, our hearts’ desire was first realized. In fact, I remember the dates when we learned I was pregnant all six times. Weird.
Now, I don’t, like, make a cake or have a party or anything like that. I just reflect upon that “good news” day.
All the unknowns about having a child — would we have a boy or a girl? Would the child be healthy? Will I love the baby enough? Will I be a good mom? — all those unknowns melted away the day two became three.
And I reflected on what life was like *gasp* sixteen years ago when she was just a few months old, and into the first years of her life, and recalled something we used to “sing” in the car when Acia was about a year old — we would sing part of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and she would “answer” with a sound effect that only she could do. I ran upstairs to see if she remembered it…
“Hey, Acia?”
“Yeah?” she answered.
We met in the hallway and I started singing it. She looked at me like I was a weirdo, then I asked, “Does this sound familiar?” Then I sang it again. And she answered exactly way she did as a one-year-old. We giggled.
Wow. Talk about a poignant moment. I think we were both in another time and place for split second.
I wish I were as good at documenting these things in a memory book as I am at filing them in my brain.
What a wonderful journey. I’m loving this!
© Alexa Lopez, 2008
Growing Edges 