magic march

i love march.

there. i said it. i know march is  unabashedly wet in this here parts (and notoriously unpredictable in ontario, where i lived most of my life) but for me, march and magic are synonymous.

my wife and i got together on march break. and rather coincidentally (we couldn't have planned it if we tried), both my children were born this month. see? magic.

the wife and i have been working magic for some time now to prepare for our babies' birthdays this month.

and oh, if there's one thing i want to get right as a mom, it's birthdays. my babies' birthdays celebrate multiple anniversaries, after all: the end of our pregnancies, the beginning of our motherhood, the birth of our children, meeting our children for the first time, and the forming of a new family.

birthdays are magical.

i always knew i wanted to be a mother. but i don't think i ever believed it would happen, not really. not until it did. and even as i hold my babes near, stare into their eyes, laugh with them, scold them - i often turn to the wife with a wink, a smile, and a whisper: "peter pan's got kids," pinching myself all the while. my babies' birthdays commemorate so much joy and love, yes. but my sense of gratitude is ever-whelming.

i made so many promises to myself when i became a mother. i have every intention of keeping all of them, as much as is possible. one of those promises was about making sure our babes knew that the day belonged to them. another promise was that whatever was happening in the day or in our lives, that i take a moment to connect with my children: to find an opportunity to look them in the eye, hold them near, and breathe in the memory of their birth.

anyway, when the boy turned 2, we started a tradition of decorating the house for a party of 4. so that when our little celebrant woke up, they would know their birthday was a day more special than all the rest. and then in the grand tradition of lorelai gilmore, we would try to tell them their birth story.

we were going to catch a ferry on the girl's 2nd birthday this past weekend, so my not-so-little, fast-talking, funny, dearest baby girl woke up to this.

best chocolate cake i ever made! thank you alicia paulson!

and then we celebrated all weekend. in victoria, in fact. 

at fisherman's wharf

these seals were so sweet!

we fell in love with beacon hill park

she only takes her backpack off when we force her to. which means at bedtime.

suffice it to say that my baby girl had very little attention span for her birth story.

knitted bear  is the ugliest thing i've ever made. no seriously, the wife had to talk me out of torching it while we were setting up the girl's birthday morning. thankfully,  she tolerates loves it. 

but believe me when i say i replayed the moments before and after her arrival over and over again. 

just minutes in this world

it's impossible that she's more beautiful to us today than the moment we first laid eyes on her. 


but she is. 

and i suppose that's the lesson i learn from my children everyday.

just look at that face. 

2!!!

everything is possible.

the boy's birthday is up next. so we're keeping the decorations up for the rest of magic month. because there is so much more to celebrate (and also because making magic, like birthing, is bloody hard work. which means, of course, we've got to make it last for as long as we can).