Did I really not post at all in April? I've been gathering up photos to post for months and months, always thinking I'm about to get to it, and now I have an overwhelming amount. Time permitting, I could easily post a photo & a few thoughts each day, because each day something interesting and moving happens that involves the kids. The thing is, I've struggled to write for a few months. About the time I went back to work. I've been feeling things so deeply. What can I say about it? It's too much to say. It's too gushy and full of doubt and even grief. I am not sure how much to lay out there. So I had to step away from posting much for a while.

I'd like to do a round up soon. And it would be cool to try an experiment of posting every day -- or at least three times a week -- and see how that feels.

But today I just want to say that tomorrow is Halina's 6 and 1/2 birthday. Today she read to me for the first time.  She's been on such a journey of growth this year. It is truly a phenomenal transition between preschool ending and preparing for first grade. But it's only one year.

This morning, she comforted me gently when I was crying, stroking my hair. I was surprised and grateful for her kind presence. Tonight she held my hand before falling asleep and said I was the best mommy in the world, and that she knows this even though she hasn't met all the other mommies.

It's really just beyond-beyond, this love -- and the ways you screw up and are redeemed by this love. There really are not words for the heartbreaking & heartbuilding awesomeness of it. The way it's here now but won't be around forever.

Happy Mother's Day to the moms, but also to the kids who, I can't help feeling, choose us and make us moms in the first place.