Happy Birthday Haylee

Two days ago I was sobbing over this keyboard, delighting in the emotion that I was feeling but unable to finish a single task because of it. I began to write a post but only made it halfway through paragraph two. There was so much I wanted to say but the emotional flash flood that was occurring inside my skin was just too much for me to explain. So I waited for the storm to pass and finished it, albeit two days late:

 

On this day, twelve years ago, I became a mother. I was nineteen years old and yes, I knew exactly how life altering it would be. I knew I never wanted to have kids. I knew that becoming pregnant was an act of negligence. People said I was nowhere near responsible enough to be a parent and I knew that too. But somewhere between  my water breaking in my hovel of an apartment and being admitted into the maternity ward, I realized that I could not only overcome this obstacle, I was going to bull doze it with a mother fucking monster truck.

 

I gave birth toHaylee The Magnificent after 22 hours of hard labor without my mother there for me, without a loving husband and without uttering one god-dammed cuss word. It was obvious that Haylee was starting her job as mediator and care-taker from her Day 1.

 

If it weren’t for her I would have felt completely alone. Sure there were lots of familiar faces present but there was no one there that could be on my level, completely, and reach me in those dark crevices that I tend to lurk in. But she found  me there and together we worked hard to bring her into this world.

 

Once she made her grand entrance into the cold hospital room she never cried. She was unlike any other baby I had ever met. She dominated the baby nation with her stoic demeanor and superior tolerance. Most babies would scream until their tonsils bled if they heard a dog bark or an air horn at a loud football game. But Haylee would lift her chin and spit baby drool on them in disgust. She was perfection with icing on top. The day that her ear drums burst because of a nasty ear infection was the first time she ever got fussy and I was so scared because it was so unlike her. And although the pain must have been excruciating she calmed down to look at the rain while I comforted her on the porch. Through all her years she has been my Magnificent.

 

Some day she’s going to grow up and and she will need me less and less, but I will never stop needing her.