This woman is amazing

My mom gave up one of her favorite events of the year, a week as a nurse for a youth camp in Virginia, and spent most of her vacation time to come to Oregon. She arrived three days before Augustine's due date, which ended up being two days before his birth and was present to rub my back and hold my hair and speak calm, empowering, motherly words to me as I labored and pushed our little guy into this world. She stayed in our home for nearly a month, where she did all our laundry, cooked us healthy meals, kept my bedside table full of beverages and midnight snacks, changed the sheets during the few times we left the house, and even took a few night shifts with Augustine in the living room so Eric and I could have a few hours of deep sleep. And she spent lots of time cuddling her new grandbaby.

We visited a La Leche League meeting while she was hear and learned lots more over the weeks about her experiences parenting three little ones, including her time as a La Leche League leader and childbirth educator. Amazingly, much of that time was as a single mother, which is even harder for me to imagine now that we have our own little guy.

We spent her birthday together for the first time in who knows how many years by visiting Pittock Mansion, a neat historic mansion in Portland that closed just before our arrival on mom's last visit. And then Eric made her the best cake ever. Super hearty and dense, just like my mom likes, with heaps of cream cheese frosting. Doesn't she look great for 64?

Before she left town, we made a trek to the coast to introduce Augustine to the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I think they liked each other.

I am so grateful that my mom and I got to share this incredible time together and that my mom will be able to tell Auggie about his birth, just like she tells me about my birth every year on my birthday.

This boy misses his Gramsy. If there is one thing we don't like about living in Oregon, it's that we have no family members living very close. But I am grateful for the slices of time that we do have to share the day-to-day and express our love to one another, through words and also through laundry and cakes and carefully prepared peanut butter toast.