8 years ago today...

As of 4:56 a.m., 8 years ago today, I birthed my baby Adobe.  Ah, what a wild ride it's been!  If only I knew then what I know now :)  How life has changed, in so many ways...

Well, for one, I was still under the impression that my father gave me, and had been professing to people while I was pregnant - "Oh, everyone thinks that your whole life has to stop when you have kids, that everything has to change.  That's not true!  You go on with life, you have a child with you now, but you just clothe it, feed it, give it love, & it's all good!"  Hah!

I guess that approach worked for him - he was a single father, and that's how he did it, pretty much.  And I turned out fine.  I think overall he did a really great job of being both papa and mama, and he raised me to be very independent.  But, we often don't do things the way our parents did them, do we?  The idea is to continually improve upon the situation.  All any of us can do as parents is strive to find balance in our lives with our children.  As we reflect upon what was 'done' to us by our parents or whoever raised us - discover what was great & not-so-great, or in some cases, plain terrible - the best thing we can do is to release the wrongs and repeat the rights, and forge ahead with new ways of our own.  As I look around and see how people are raising their children, I am continually struck by how each generation is reacting to the one before.  I'll write a whole 'nother post at some point about this - the days of the house wife, the role of Women's Lib, the nuclear family, the explosion of single parenthood, and so on...

The main thing to say here, is that I wanted that baby so badly - the maternal urge was so strong - and I'm so glad that she was born.  Those of you who were in my life at the time, which was mostly my Corcoran crew, saw what a crazy ride I was on, with school full-time, Adobe born in my thesis semester (art school - Corcoran College of Art + Design), working almost every day of the week (teaching tap & running a performing company), and strappin' that sweet baby on me everywhere I went.  I wish that I'd gotten the partner part right from the get-go, but alas, I'm one of those people who has had to learn some lessons the hard way.  I really wanted to believe it was right, that it was going to work out, but I knew somewhere deep down that it was not meant to be. And I stuck it out as long as I could.  I'm sure I was not the easiest partner at that time either.  Life is real, and we all gotta do what we gotta do.

So, on this 8th anniversary of my sweet girl's birth, I give thanks, and I reflect upon all the changes over the past several years.  Now I can just say that I am so glad to have a real, beautiful, awesome family.  Here they are, acting silly on the Photo Booth.  For awhile I thought it would just be Adobe & I for the rest of the ride, but often, just when you're about to give up, the unexpected happens.  I reconnected with my old friend Atom, aka Adam, aka Slahmed, and together, we will continue to make history...

Thank you Adobe, for being born, for being my grounding, for being such a fireball, such a great big sister, and such a sweetheart.  Thank you Atom, for all you do, for being such a great father and partner, for supporting us in so many ways, and for enabling me to learn what a real family is like, since I didn't exactly learn that as a child.
I love you guys.

My girl got to have ice cream for breakfast - Blueberry Cheesecake Custard - from the Dairy Godmother.  Yum!  Happiness is an important component of health.  Happy Birth Day Darling!