500 Seasons of My Song

Welcome to the 500th post on Little Dude's Mama.

I feel particularly bittersweet about today's monument- for one, I am so happy I've continually updated this scrapbook and journal of love for my daughter. In motherhood, a lot of intentions are best laid to rest for a handful of reasons. I am proud of the consistency in my writing and chronicling.

The other emotion I feel is incredibility. 500 posts on my growing girl- in only two and a half years, she has given me so much content. If you think this blog is full of data and remembers, that should give you an accurate portrait of what my heart and mind hold. The capacity in which I've grown since December 7, 2007 in immeasurable.

I'd like to thank the readers who faithfully check in on our lives each day. Don't take this personally when I say I don't do this for you. If I did, I'd be doing it for the wrong reasons. While I take great pride and comfort in your interest, support, and praises, I'd tell this story without it.

I think #500 is a big deal. I know a lot of bloggers deal with their milestones in big, flashy ways. I'll tell you right now I don't have any big news to share. I don't have plans to launch anything. I don't even have an iPad to give away to one lucky reader. That is not what this is about ... I'm sorry!

So instead I'll keep my daughter in mind. I'll show her through photos I am who I am because of where I've been. I'll take her to the place my story begins. Where all my questions have answers, where all my prayers are answered. It's where I learned to read and write and love and share and boast and forgive and breathe and retain. It's where I learned to keep my heart on my sleeve. It's where I learned to think before I speak. Where I learned to mind my manners, and where I learned to be myself. It's where I learned to respect and honor my season and my song.


Because there is a place where the wind blows, and all directions point toward home.


It's where everything stays the same, touched and untouched at the same time.


It's where redemption wears the colors of the Lupines that faithfully grow behind the mailbox every summer.


It's the story the clothes line tells ... it's remembering when the thunder cracks and the lightening illuminates your bed to run, run, run to get the bedding before it pours.


It's the fact that I'll never think of it as junk, because it'll never be trash. Only treasure.


It's where being bored granted you mopping duty, where you found joy where you least and most likely expected it.


It's after years of steady rhythm and commotion, finding the peace only time can provide. It's accepting grace.


It's knowing that every path leads to home. It's touching everything again for the first time. It's never being too old or too distracted or too proud.


It's in the simplicity where everything shared with someone else is sweeter. It's remembering to never, ever forget.

Lil' dude, you've been these places with me, and can name them on your own when we're not even there. I hope your dreams are fortified with the things you already love, the people who already belong. You're my favorite season, and my every song.

I'd do everything again and repeat it all over to have this with you the exact same.
You're my 500 and more.

Mama loves.