We’re celebrating your 1am, 2:30, 4:45, crack-of-dawn wakeup call. We’re applauding your sleepy-eyed shuffle down the hallway to report to the tiniest boss – you know the one. He’s impractically lovable despite not being the best communicator. She demands long hours and unwavering loyalty, but has a way of making you feel more valued, more essential, than you’ve ever felt before. They have terrible boundaries, unrealistic expectations, and the world’s greatest giggle.
And this parenting gig? It’s the best and hardest job you’ve ever had.
We’re celebrating your cold cup of coffee, wherever it might be hiding. Your milk-stained uniform, your professionally untidy bedhead, the under-eye circles you’ve earned by learning as you go. Here’s to your impeccable record of responding to management’s many demands, your creative out-of-the-box solutions, your commitment to making it work. We see the ingenuity you employ, keeping snacks tucked in the bathroom cupboard, emergency diapers in the glove compartment, and extra shirt shoved into the stroller pocket in case of spit-up related wardrobe malfunction.
In your first few months on the job, you’ve adapted to relentlessly changing circumstances. You’ve mastered the 24/7 care of entire human being, a whole person who you’ve only just met and couldn’t possibly love more. You’ve managed to feed, clothe, bathe, and steal moments of sleep. You’ve solved crying sprees with unprecedented dance moves, invented a thousand new silly faces, designed and implemented a goofy sound regimen that earns a perfect giggle from the boss at least 98% of the time.
We know it hasn’t been easy. We know your limits have been tested, your patience tried – we know you’ve cycled through exhaustion and frustration and terror and hope and joy at least a few hundred times. We know you’ve needed to ask for help, and we applaud your courage to do so. We know you’ve needed to advocate for yourself and your baby, and we bow to your bold parenting magic.
We know you’ve done more than what you thought you could do, and for that, we celebrate you.
Here’s to the incredible work you are doing, every day, all day, with so much love.
May you feel seen and celebrated this Labor Day. May you have precious moments of rest and the appreciation and applause you absolutely deserve.
Your labor of love is beautiful, brave, and inspiring. We’re sending you so much gratitude for the work you do.