From Baby Wreaths to Pinatas...

OK, I promise this is my last "boo-hoo, my baby is now a big boy" post. But I just had to share with you what made me cry for hours last Saturday night.

(Seriously, to the point where my eyes were so swollen at church the next day, I looked like I'd been in a bar fight... like, when you can't put your eyeliner on because there is no top eyelid... like, the ugly cry when you're trying to tell someone why your crying and your face is making all these nasty contortions so you just stop talking all together... you get my point)

Crazy, isn't it?

I was on the verge of belting out the chorus of The Way We Were by Barbra Streisand when I pulled myself together before Jimmy came walking back in the room with that...

"Seriously, you're crying again" look.

Call me sentimental but this wreath has been hanging on Trace's bedroom door since February 9, 2007, the day we brought him home from the hospital. My mother-in-law's precious sisters, Sheila and Sandi, made it for him the day he was born. They are so special to me!

They drove in from Alabama that morning and made it just in time to see him rolled out of the delivery room, left the hospital, went to Hobby Lobby, made the wreath and brought it back to Erlanger to hang on our door before he was even 4 hours old. These women don't mess around! ha!



When he turned 2, I thought to myself...well, it's probably time to take the baby wreath down, but I just couldn't do it. He was still technically a baby... right?

This year, I knew I was really pushing it but the thought of it made my uterus hurt.

I couldn't stand looking at an empty hook. But after his birthday party last weekend I realized the pinata would make a good replacement. I figured he could recognize the number, count 10 times as high as it, name every color on it, and successfully beat it with a stick hard enough to extract every piece of candy in it... there's no denying it, he's not a "baby" anymore.

Excuse the bottom, it took a pretty brutal beating from the little party goers!

It honestly wouldn't have bothered me one bit to leave that baby wreath up until the day he left for college. Can't you just see it now... packing up his clothes, breaking apart his bed, boxing up his books, U-Haul parked in the driveway...

"Son, don't you want to take the wreath to hang on your dorm door? That way everyone will know your name." ha!

Ahhh, time marches on. Babies become big boys... and moms just become mush.

Memories
Like the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were