I love traditions.  I really do.  I love the feel of something so familiar and comforting.  A tradition is like an old friend that you’ve known forever.  You might not see them often, but when you do, it’s like coming home.  Traditions are wonderfully warm and full of happiness and all the things that make wonderful memories. 

When Dax and I first got married, we had no incentive to make our own traditions.  We just kept on with what we’d known forever.  Except it wasn’t really that simple because we were trying to combine two completely different family histories with very different traditions.  We stumbled through the first few years.  When it came to holidays, we either visited my family or his.  For birthdays, we joined his family.  For Sunday breakfast we showed up at his parents.  For decorating the Christmas tree, we went to my parents.  Easter egg hunt?  His parents.  New Year’s pork pie?  My parents.  We had wonderful times and made many special memories, but nothing defined us.  We were just an extension of our families.  Nothing that said Dax and Stacie. 

It wasn’t until we had our own kids that slowly, over time, without really even meaning to, we began to form our own traditions.  Slowly, Sunday breakfast at his parents was replaced with our own tradition of early Mass and picking up taquitos to eat at our house.  Our birthday celebrations began to center around us.  We now decorate our own Christmas tree.  It’s not to say that we no longer participate in our childhood traditions…sometimes we also join my parents and help decorate their tree (which is always, faithfully done on Thanksgiving weekend); sometimes we end up celebrating a birthday dinner for one of us at his parents; Dad still thinks of us on New Year’s and sends us a delicious pork pie.  And we love that…all of it.  We love still being a part of our families, yet we love being a family all of our own, too.  A family we’ve formed with lots of love and time and yes, lots of our own traditions.  Traditions like making muffins every Saturday morning, driving around to look at lights on Christmas Eve, a trip to Barnes & Noble on each of our birthdays, Sundays filled with family time. 

We’re not completely an entity of our own…we still celebrate the big holidays with our extended families, blending our thoughts and ideas with our long-loved childhood traditions and we still stumble through uncharted territory at times, but we’re no longer simply a blurry extension of what we once were.  We’re a beautiful blend of old traditions and new, defined simply by our love for what’s wonderfully warm and full of happiness and a deep desire to pass on the simplicity of comfortable, familiar traditions to our children. 

Saturday morning muffins

Helping Mommy prepare muffins

“A mother is the most important person on earth. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any Cathedral — a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body.”    

-Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty

Gone are the days of helping Joseph get dressed or helping him put together his favorite puzzle.  No longer can I show him how to do things.  We’ve hit the age of “I’ll do it myself.”  The most often heard words around our house are those of a toddler screaming (sometimes literally) for independence…”No, Mom, no!”; “Joseph do it.”; “If I do it Mom, you say ‘Good for you’ okay?” 

This stage is a little trying, no doubt, but I know we’ll come out on the other side soon enough and life will be even better because of it.  I know that.  I do, really, but I’m still going to take a moment to mourn the loss of his complete dependence on me.  I’m going to miss him bringing me his sweater to help him put on and I’m going to miss him asking me to choose which snack and I’m going to miss him asking for help with his blocks…I really am going to miss those days; those days that I sometimes said, “I can’t wait for him to be more independent.”  I really am going to miss it.  But it’s all part of growing up…as a mommy. 

No, Mom, no! I'll put my jacket on.

At least he let me zip it up!

I have a secret.  You are probably going to think I’m nuts, but I’m going to share my secret with you anyway.  Okay, here goes:  I love waking up to nurse William during the night.  I know, I know, you think I’m crazy, but let me try to explain.  I don’t love losing sleep.  Oh no, not me.  In fact, I consider myself to be a little sleep obsessed (translate: I’m cranky when I don’t get enough).   So if I’m not suffering from some form of insomnia, then you’re probably wondering why in the world I like, no actually, enjoy, getting up in the middle of the night to nurse.

I’ve been reflecting on this, too: why do I enjoy getting up in the middle of the night to nurse?  With Joseph it was different.  I remember waking up in the morning and grudgingly saying to Dax, “How did you sleep?” but before he could answer, I’d say, “Well, Joseph was up every hour last night” and then off I’d go in a huff feeling cheated of a good night’s sleep.  It’s not that William nurses less often.  It’s not that I’ve become accustomed to sporadic bursts of sleep.  It’s not that I’ve become some type of martyr or that I’ve discovered a new level of mothering.  It’s actually much simpler than that.  It’s just that I relish my one opportunity to simply be with William.  Finally…no one is tugging at me or demanding my attention.  No one is asking if I already unloaded the dishwasher or threw the diapers in the washer.  No one is asking me to choose a book or find a sock.  The phone is not ringing; the doorbell is silent; the computer is off.  It’s quiet.  It’s peaceful.  It’s serene.  It’s just me and William.  No interruptions.  Just us.  And for that, I don’t mind losing a little sleep.