The first time I met my husband he was unconscious (and other thoughts on Mother’s day).

He definitely wasn’t my husband at the time, and in all honesty I would have never figured that 13 years later we’d end up living in a house with 4 children.

So, back the unconscious thing.

At the time I was working for a local theatre as a stagehand, and occasionally we’d hire out guys for some of the shows to come in and do some work. I don’t really remember the specifics of the day, who was performing and the like…what I do remember is coming out of the shop onto the stage about the time they were bringing in the pipes they hang the lights from, hearing a sound, followed by a THUD…and then looking down and saying, “Woah, did we just kill the sound guy?”

We did not.

Husband hadn’t realized the pipes were in, it was dark, he didn’t look up…and ran head first into the end of a pipe. So hard, in fact, that he fell backwards, landed hard, and was briefly unconscious.

Pretty romantic, isn’t it?

The second time I met him the other sound guy put a very large, very heavy ramp onto his foot (even to this day his toe is not the same).

Fast forward about eight years and this now divorced father of three is proposing to me with a hot sauce packet at a fast food joint (you know the one, I’m sure of it). We were married on a leap day, my father walking me down the aisle, and my mother and the kids walking him down the aisle.

Fast forward another three years, and my husband (who is NOT funny, but occasionally funny in his un-funny-ness) is suddenly jaw-droppingly, side achingly funny.

So funny, in fact, that from the back seat we hear former youngest and oldest sons holler from the backseat, “WOW! Dad, you made her laugh her REAL laugh. Good job, that never happens!”

So funny, in fact, that I decide to take a pregnancy test and find out that not only am I pregnant, but I’m reeeaaaallly pregnant. Like, don’t even sit the little stick on the counter before the lines pop blue kind of pregnant.

And, as soon as we told the kids, we were a family of six now. Just like that.

Ever since he was born, even people that knew me before ask what it’s like “to be a mom now” and mothers day is not made any easier by the creation of a biological child. I put on a good face when even family members wish me a mother’s day this year (but never have in the past), but inside it hurts in the most complicated way.

The thing is, this isn’t my first mother’s day.

I became a mom the day I met oldest son at the age of four, and he grabbed my hand, sat me down, and crawled in my lap to have me read him a story. He has made me a handmade gift every year for six years on mother’s day, no matter which house he ends up spending it at. He never once has forgotten the role I play in his life.

I became a mom the day middle child, at the age of three, let me pick her up by her ears and decided she wanted first sleepover at our house (away from those boys, and before we even had beds for everyone). I struggle being her mother as she defiantly becomes her own pre-teen self, but love her as fiercely as any of my boys.

I became a mother the day former youngest hollered “Kyyyaaaaakeeeeeeee” at the top of his tiny lungs when he was under two, and we found out that he did, indeed, have a name for this new member of his life. He has no memory of his life before there was me, and he and I have an incredible bond unlike with the other two.

So, when I “became a mother” that morning seven months ago when newest son arrived in this world, he became my first/fourth kid and we remarked how much he looked like former youngest. His milestones get compared to the milestones of the other three, and though he’s of my flesh, he’s not my first.

I guess you could say it’s complicated.