Seven years old and this is her first official mother’s day. She had never celebrated it with previous foster parents, and she certainly hadn’t celebrated it with her birth mother. She was never with foster parents long enough anyway and her birth mother just didn’t care, so Cade had never heard of the holiday.
But all week, her teacher had talked about it and told her and her classmates that they would be making special gifts for their mommies. And Cadence had felt something sad resonate within her, because … was she allowed to participate if Jo wasn’t her birth mommy? The adoption was just newly official (by a good couple of months) and Cadence still hadn’t called Jo anything except the woman’s name… at least not to her face. She was too scared to call her anything else, afraid it was all too good to be true – but if anyone was deserving enough of the title of ‘mommy’, it was Jo. She was Cade’s mother in every sense of the word and Cadence loved her. (She loved both Jo AND Alex, but this is mother’s day… not father’s day)
Cade had spent the week making a pretty card and an imprint of her little hand. Once it had dried, they were allowed to decorate it, but Cade struggled with what to write on it, as well as her card. (To mommy, or to Jo?). Her teacher had asked what was wrong and after a lot of encouragement, Cadence had shyly explained her nervousness. The teacher told her that blood did not make a family, that love did. And Cade loved Jo and Jo loved her (Jo told her so at bedtime). This was what ultimately made her decision.
Seven years old and she had never found someone as deserving as Jo is to be celebrated for being a mother to her. The little girl nervously pokes her head into Alex and Jo’s bedroom before she enters slowly and climbs up onto the bed. Alex had to work, but he had helped her get the cereal down and the milk and a bowl first, smiling something warm at her before he left.
The card she made is presented shyly to Jo before she holds out a crudely wrapped and awkwardly shaped present (her little hand print). “H-happy mother’s day.” The little girl stammers anxiously, navy hues searching the other’s face carefully.
The card is decorated with flowers and hearts and on the inside in Cadence’s messy scrawl reads, “Happy mother’s day. I never thought I would get so lucky to have a mom like you. I’m so glad you found me. I love you, mommy. Love Cadence.”
@pedsprincess//here’s a mother’s day thing
It felt like only yesterday this tiny little bundle of messy hair and big sad blue eyes came into her ER, and she knew from the second her hands took Cadence’s little squishy ones that she couldn’t just walk away from this little unloved girl. It had taken some convincing on her part to get Alex on bored, but after he met her, and the more time he spend Jo could see him fall in love with her just they way she did. Jo knew from the moment she met her she was meant to be her mother, and even if almost a year later the little girl hadn’t called her mommy she was still every bit her mommy.
Jo had no expectations for mother’s day; it wasn’t a holiday she marked, all it had ever served as was a reminder of how her own mother had abandoned her at two weeks old; it reminded her how unloveable she was. Jo thought maybe Alex, if he remembered would pick up a card at the hospital gift shop, at best. She certainly never expected this, her daughter standing at the side of her bed, still dressed in her little footsie pajamas's Jo was obsessed with ( they were beyond adorable on her tiny little girl ) holding out a hand made card and present, with a tray already set on the night stand with a messy bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice. She gasp, pulling herself up to sit up in bed, hand coming to cover her mouth as amber eyes fill, “ oh Cadence sweetheart --- you are amazing, you did all this by yourself,huh? --- c’mere --” she holds her arms out stretched signalling for the little girl to climb up on to the bed with her.
Opening the card carefully she pulls it out smiling, she’s never seen anything quite to beautiful and made with love, opening it she reads the words aloud, her breathe hitches and a tear spills down her cheeks when she gets to the i love you mommy --- “ i love you too kiddo, so so much, you have no idea ----” she says arms wrapping around her little girl pulling her into hug, and pressing a kiss on top of her head. “ this is beautiful Cadence, super pretty --- okay, shall we open the present, you wanna help?” she smiles picking up the awkward shaped gift, noting Cadence’s wrapping skills were suspiciously similar to Alex’s, carefully unwrapping the gift she once again finds her eyes filling as she looks as the imprint on Cadence tiny little hand print forever frozen in time to look back on and remember just how small she was at seven years old.
“ this is perfect -- i love it, we should put this up in the living room, don’t ya think? we’ll get dad to do that when he gets home ---” she’d started referring to Alex as dad for a few weeks now to Cadence, it was tentative, and she was still very much aware that this was new to all three of them, but she wanted Cade to know that as far as Jo and Alex were concerned Cade was as much their daughter as she would have been if they’d raised her from birth.
“ you know ---” she pauses, wondering if she’d stepping too far, “ if you wanted to call me mommy -- or mom, and Alex, if you wanted to call him dad i know he’d love that, and me too, because i am your mommy, i think I was always suppose to be your mommy kiddo ---but ONLY if you want too, if you want to call us Jo and Alex still, that’s okay too, we’re till your parents, doesn’t matter what names you use -- ” Jo says softly, brushing back messy hair from her little girls face.
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