Immaculate state

In my country, we celebrate Mother's Day on December 8th. It is the day when most Catholics worldwide observe the impossibility (unless you are a believer) of the Immaculate Conception - when Mary, untouched by man, virginal in both body and mind, had God's son implanted into her womb. Made a mother without... well, it seems almost blasphemous to state the obvious but there you have it - made a mother without having had sex. As an afterthought, I've come up with a more elegant turn of phrase - she conceived without having known carnality.

I remember this from always: Come Mother's Day, my father wakes up and thanks my mother for the gift of us, his two daughters and in turn, my mother thanks my father for making her a mother. I always thought that this was such a sweet thing to do. A reminder that for them, it took two to cook us, and two to raise us, and then two turn us into something that to this day, gives them renewed hope and pleasure because so much of them lives on in us. And that by the same token, will continue to live on in our children: my own son, my sister's as yet unborn daughter.

I'd like to think that the road to my motherhood began on a bus ride to Charles de Gaulle airport one cloudy day a few years back, when I was the one to force an issue which my husband said would have required no force.

Blunt as always, bolstered by the knowledge of a terrific couple of days having been spent enjoying each other's company, I turned to my then boyfriend and I said:

Well, are we going to get married or not?

To his credit he didn't skip a beat. At most, he blinked maybe once and said something that had apparently been quite obvious to him if not me.

But I always meant to marry you, didn't you know?

Hello? No, I didn't know. Nevertheless, amongst a slew of any possible replies he could have given me, this was a perfect response. The end of my single-hood. That divine moment of settling into a space in my heart and mind that felt quite utterly, just perfectly right. Him and I and the opening salvo of a life of loving together. It was as clean and immaculate a moment as any fervent believer in the rightness of things could have ever wished.

That was the first step I ever took towards my motherhood.

This morning, as I write this post, I have my 3 year old son chattering madly next to me in between open-mouthed bites of bread and scrambled eggs. He's spanking clean after the shower my husband just gave him and newly dressed in a little white polo shirt and jeans. He's a poster child for all things cute and a living embodiment of everything that is innocent. All the wonder of the world is reflected in those bright brown eyes of his, and I can't find it in myself to tell him that he must continue to eat (a task we struggle with on a daily basis) rather than chat, because I'm enjoying his babbling, sing-songy observations too much. These fingers of mine keep flying across this keyboard even as I sneak another of my never-ending fill of looks on my little boy. For three years now, I've known exactly what my mother has always thanked my father for. It is a miraculous state that of motherhood. As holy as the word implies. I believe in it like I don't believe in many other things.

Though not quite my day yet, I'll thank you now jan for giving us our little boy. Happy mother's day to you too my love. Like I've always said, it was meant to be, and just for the record, I had every intention of marrying you first. So there.

And to all my blogging mothers AND fathers, a Happy Mother's Day to you all.
Milena

Rodeo inspired snippets of my Texas Life

Photo by crowt59

Howdy from Houston! You might not believe this but I've never said howdy before and always wanted to.

So for those of you who are not in the know, today is the official start of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. What is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo you ask? In a nutshell, it is a Texavaganza of Cowboy hat-toting, barbecued-rib eating, calf-roping, bull-riding, country music playing, cook-off, pie-off, boot stomping, line-dancing fest of all things Western the likes of which, y'all have never seen UNLESS, you've been to the Houston Rodeo. Really, for the next 20 days this city will be breathing and wallowing in the essence of those things that define this one-time republic, as the GREAT. STATE. OF TEXAS.

On Friday, my son's school hosted a toddler rodeo parade. I wish I could show you some photos of the event but because of privacy reasons, you'll just have to imagine that you can see the cute little cowboys and cowgirls with their fake horsies and mini-lassos parading for their proud parents. R__ pulled a cardboard wagon, and when his teachers would prompt him to shout yee-haw! he would do so on cue while he whipped pretend horses. Keeping true to Texas-style, it was just a bit too much but then, that is what made the parade so fun.

Afterwards, parents and children all gathered around a fake camp fire and sang songs while a singing cowboy taught us to yodel as he imparted the kind of yodel-related wisdom which you can apply to anything in life - If you're gonna yodel, you can't be shy 'bout it. By the end of the sing-a-thon, I no longer was and my son and I yodeled till we belly-laughed. Guess yodeling is good for a whole lot of other things too.

Four years ago, as I lay exhausted after birthing R__, a man came to conduct the legalities of bringing a child into this world. After my husband and I had told him the name we'd chosen for our first-born he smiled, and in a heavy southern accent he said, Congratulations! You've got yourselves a bona-fide Texan. I remember my husband and I exchanging glances. It was, I'm sure, the very first time either one of us had faced the fact that because I had given birth in Texas, our kid would forever be defined as a native of this place. There was nothing wrong with this realization, it was just that with our own particular geographic and cultural legacies, Texas would have been about the last place we could have imagined having a baby in, a relative Timbuktu to the countries we ourselves had been born in. An unexpected but not unwelcome addition to the mosaic of our international backgrounds.

What being Texan might mean for my son in his future, I still don't know. He sure looked mighty cute though in his little cowboy outfit. He looked... like a little man. Maybe it was my fond eye but I even thought the kid kind of swaggered a bit. Texas men invariably swagger. Someday, when he's grown up, I hope that when someone asks him where he's from he'll mention his cultural heritage and then, proudly state that he was born in the state of Texas of the good ol' US of A. There are lots of good people here, men and women who are open in their thinking and generous in their Souther-ness, well-mannered and kind. If you think about it, who wouldn't want these Texas defined traits as legacies for their child? My husband and I remain transplants to this city which is our current home but perhaps our son, will grow to be a part of what is deep in the heart of Texas.