It's a day just for mothers. And that means me.

It's been a wonderful day. I'm blessed, and that's really all there is to it.

Ava's big gift to me was lots of sleep this weekend. Between her reasonable midnight-to-five sleep schedule, and Rob's willingness to take care of that first early bottle, I slept until almost 9 both days. Booyah.

And then this morning, I got up to open cards from one supercute daughter and one awesome husband. Evidently Ava also snuck out and procured a gorgeous azalea plant and a gift card to Dead Poet Books, a fantastic used/vintage bookstore that I drool over every time I drive past.

Here is evidence of her early morning subterfuge:




I'll teach her later about destroying all photographic evidence.

We went to breakfast at our neighborhood Jewish deli and it was really nice. I really like this place. As an added bonus in honor of the day, mothers received a free piece of breakfast cake. NOM NOM NOM DELICIOUS CAKE. That's one of the percs of being a grown-up: I can have cake for breakfast and ain't nobody gonna stop me.

I've decided that becoming a mom has been like joining a cult. In a good way, of course. But all of a sudden, the other cult members start conversations with me about Ava (how old is she, does she sleep, etc), about our family (is she our first, our last, our everything?), about my pregnancy (a week overdue? Goodness! I'm a trooper!) and stuff like that. I first noticed it at the pediatrician's office, when we were all sitting there with our infants discussing poop and breastmilk. It happens a lot. Today's cult meeting took place at breakfast, when the mom at the table next to us struck up a conversation involving her daughter (probably 2-1/2?) and how neat it is to have a first Mother's Day. And then our daughters met (well, hers met ours while ours slept peacefully...) and for just a few minutes, we were all part of the great Circle of Life.

After breakfast we visited Dad & Florence and had a lovely visit, dominated of course by Ava's babbly charm. Seriously, the kid chatters like a parrot and it's the sweetest sound I know. We've been getting the occasional giggle out of her as well, usually by taking advantage of her tickly belly. She freezes up when we turn on the video camera, but I'll get a shot of it eventually.

I'm so glad to be rediscovering holidays (even unofficial ones like Mother's Day, which, let's face it, was created and is promoted in order to sell greeting cards) that I've ignored for years. Rob and I have embarked upon this parenting thing with a clean slate--we're not going to carry over family drama and let any of it cast a shadow over Ava's future memories. As far as we're concerned, we're batting a thousand for joyous holidays.

We have a new feature over to the right --->. It's Ava's Playlist, which is going to be how I keep track of what we sing to her before she goes to sleep at night. Rob and I both know about a bajillion songs between the two of us, but we don't always remember the words at crunch time. So far, these are the ones that we knew off the top of our heads. We'll add more as time goes by.

Happy Mother's Day to my fellow cult-members, past, present and future.