Chase's first year of school finished up this week and to celebrate we had a day of fun yesterday in Santa Cruz at the beach boardwalk. It was just the two of us and was magical. You can't beat a carefree day playing carnival games, going on stomach turning rides and eating all the junk food you can find. Sometimes, like on days like this, it hits me how much life has changed since he was born. We have grown together, mother and son.

Motherhood didn't start out as I had imagined. He was a fussy little thing and I was an emotional, anxious wreck and had no idea what I was doing. I thought you put a baby down on their back in a cozy swaddle and they would peacefully drift off to sleep, you put them to the breast and they would do what nature intended, you would lay out a few toys for them to play with and they would sit quietly and play. I seriously thought these things. And I don't even know where I got that dream like, insane idea. Like parenting would be like this picture and the caption would be "weeeeee!". Yeah, no.

Luckily, I hit my stride about six months in and things started to click for me as a mother. The ups and downs of infancy, toddler hood and the preschool years have all been there, but we both settled in nicely to our life together. And man, what a beautiful gift I was given with this child. There is a spark to him that is magnetic. All of the good from me and Jay and our families seemed to sprout in this gorgeous boy. He's pure magic...with a side of sass. 

He's still young and there is so much more parenting ahead of me in raising this boy (and his baby brother - gushing post about him coming soon). Most days are not the beach boardwalk, but you need intermittent moments of total fun without the constraint of time, rules, discipline or nutrition along the way for all the hard work we put in as parents and kids.