Week 26

Sunday was Mother’s Day in the UK . . . or I suppose I should say Mum’s Day. A completely jarring feeling for some strange reason to celebrate something we would celebrate at home on a totally different day. The stores, filling that oh so extensive commercial gap between Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day/ Easter, were loaded with pink frilly teddies (and by teddy, I mean bear, not lingerie unfortunately) and teapots and such that I suppose would appeal to some mum’s, thankfully not me as that isn’t really Keegan’s style (lingerie, yes . . . bear, no) . . . Liam’s possibly, but Keegan was leading Liam’s exhuberant as always charge this year. Florists were prepared with extra tulips and daisies and Liam’s school was buzzing all week with a little surprise the children were preparing to take home. On Monday, the school requested a photo of each child with their mum so on Tuesday I picked Liam up with one in tow. This age is just so priceless . . . first off he came running across the school yard screaming, “Mommy! Mommy!” in front of all his other very boyish, very rough and tumble buddies and straight into my arms. One of these days, that will be SO not cool and my heart will break in two {and we’ll just have to have another baby for crying out loud, but just pretend you didn’t hear that} but for now I will take those snotty, dirty handed, tussled hair hugs in front of the world just as much as he will allow it. As if this didn’t make me mushy enough, he proceeds to take the photograph so gingerly from my hands and parade it about, showing it so proudly to his schoolmates and teachers. My Mother’s Day could’ve concluded right then and there. By Friday, I was feeling much more in the spirit after all of this plus a week of furniture buying and assembling. Nothing like your first little get together to make you feel like a Mother Bird fussing over the final fluffs to the nest. I think I can officially say now {gulp}, I am done buying furniture and really close to having the accessorizing complete. It feels SOOO good. Fitting, actually, given we are gee, only exactly halfway through our first year here. Read: It’s about GD time. So Liam gave me his beautifully handwritten card that said, “Th Ank you for buying ALL the things To Mace My oWN breAkfast. happy MoTher’s dAy. LiAM.” Montessori child through and through. I think it was a bit of a collaboration between his beloved teacher and him, but still, he has come literally miles since September. Sunday morning came and there was a fair amount of top secret hustling and bustling around. I was commanded to dress nicely while Daddy took care of steering Liam away from his usual uniform of sweatpants and tshirt. While I finished getting ready, the boys snuck away down the street and returned home with a massive bouquet of flowers. Liam told me he passed his best buddy Jacob and his dad Josh on the way home who, according to Liam, were on their way to the flower shop as well. (They weren’t mind you, but to my sweet little Liam, Daddy+Son out on the street translated into an obvious outing to buy Mother’s Day Flowers, duh) By now I was starting to feel this unnerving feeling like I should be calling my own mum, like “Oh crap, I forgot to buy her a card,” (which by the way, I realized I HAVE to do now because in May, there won’t be any around here) and like, “Shouldn’t it be about twenty degrees warmer?!” Come on United Kingdom, mum’s do NOT like winter for God’s sake. But we went and had a lovely brunch anyway and spent the rest of the day freezing our butts off, in our nice clothes, at the zoo. My boys are the best . . . equally sweet, equally cute, and I am equally madly in love with both. I told Liam at brunch about all the jobs I have had over the years . . . teaching art, working at a Montessori school, architecture, photography, even bagging groceries and my personal favorite of these, scooping ice cream, but hands down, the best job I have ever had is being his Mommy. I could see my words literally wrap around his body like a hug, squeeze him tight, and prompt the most priceless unconditional love in his face. Of course, then we had to spend the next five minutes explaining what “hands down” meant, but still. And in the end, celebrating Mother’s Day the day before Liam’s birthday was actually completely perfect. I wouldn’t even have this job if it weren’t for him.

This week, I am dedicating the photo section of this blog to mostly Liam photos :) A few fun instagrams and some other stuff I've saved over the weeks plus some I took this week. Once we get through birthday week, we will resume our regularly scheduled program, Wednesday Walkabouts. Cheers!

This was the shot I took for his birthday invitation. Just so strikingly grown up all of the sudden. Can't believe my baby is 5!!