jambo means hello

A near perfect Mother's Day weekend was followed by the emergence of our first swallowtail this morning. Though we missed the actual breaking free of the chrysalis, finding the butterfly upside down in the caterpillar nursery was itself enough of a joy and shock that it hardly mattered. Plus, I figure we have ten more shots to see it happen anyway. After the initial ohhhs and awwws, the gorgeous thing crawled on my finger and let me gently place it in the garden where it sunned itself for most of the morning before finally taking flight.

It was perhaps a nice ending omen to a Mother's Day where I tried not to focus too hard on being a mother and instead just concentrated on being. You see, I laser focus on being a mother every day of my life. So much so that I almost miss out on the act of the thing itself. Every moment of every day I am pondering and wondering and acting on those ponders and then wondering if the act I just pondered then acted on was really the best thing for the Bub. Until some other ponder grabs my imagination and the process continues anew. You see how that can drain a person.

So instead, as a mother, I let myself be in the moment. I enjoyed our first day at the pool. The newness of feeling the sun on my bare back. The unfamiliar chill of the water. The anticipation of a summer spent happy and floating. Appreciating the way the Bub was acting all too cool in front of the other kids... with a swagger in his step... and even though all his friends learned to swim last summer while he was with me in Virginia helping my mom convalesce... you could still see the pride he felt for being right on the cusp of swimming alone. I will catch up to you before the summer's out...

The prefect snuggles. The skin smelling of suntan lotion. The Bub asleep under a pile of stuffed animals, clinging to his unneeded but hardly forgotten nursing pillow. The silent glances where he reminds me he's my own.

We let the bub stay up until 10pm last night watching the Hub's favorite childhood movie Hatari, staring John Wayne... a little nod to the Hub's own late mother who took him to see it on the big screen when he was just a boy himself. The Hub was supremely influenced by this film as a child... from the way the men act towards the women in the film and how they all dressed and the guns and the exotic manliness of men who capture animals for profit in far off Africa. The Bub of course was fascinated with all the animals and particularly took to Red Button's character Pockets... the one who gets the boss' daughter in the end. You could see the Hub's delight in the moment. Watching this movie with his son. We haven't seen it since the Hub and I went to Africa, and the fact that the movie takes place in the exact part of Tanzania that we visited - Arusha, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, Serengeti - made it all the more wonderful. They were two peas in a pod. The Hub taught the Bub a phrase he read in a book when he was seven... the only real Swahili he knows... a phrase that translates to "go get the big gun quick." So proud.

I focused on the Hub this weekend and let him be a husband as much as I usually promote him to be a father. I allowed myself to be quiet and let him make me feel pretty and peaceful and happy. You see, Mother's Day might be about mothers, but for me it is just as much about the people we love... the people who make us mothers. The husbands who gave us children, the mothers who gave us life, and the children who are the sole purpose of all we do. Without them all, we would just be women... and wouldn't that be a damn shame?