Though I doubt anyone is paying much attention to my categorization of these posts, I still need to start off by saying that even though I’ve put this post into the “Around the House” category, it doesn’t technically fit there. But I’ve put it there because this post has to do with my mom’s creativity and resourcefulness, which is best encapsulated by this category. Let me explain:

My mom used to buy these boxes of lovely greeting cards from Costco — fun and sparkly pop-up cards that everyone loved receiving because they were so different from your standard ones. As a result, you’d have to pay a premium for them. Each box would come with a range of cards, from birthday to thank you to “congratulations on your new baby” ones.

The unfortunate thing was that we got little to no use out of some of these cards, especially the baby ones. We’d regularly give away the birthday cards, but then ended up with a surplus of these baby ones on our hands. Which was a double waste, because these cards were so dear — both precious and pricey!

Cue my mom’s resourcefulness. In 2010, when Sanam’s birthday came around, guess what she received? A baby card.

The card originally read, “A Baby Girl! A precious bundle wrapped in pink has come into your world…” Except my mom had scribbled over the “y” in “your” so that the card now read, “A Baby Girl! A precious bundle wrapped in pink has come into our world…”

On the inside of the card, she wrote a meaningful message reflecting on the overwhelming joy that she and my dad experienced on the day baby Sanam was born, then went on to wish Sanam a happy 22nd birthday.

I don’t know what’s more impressive here — my mom’s resourcefulness or the sweetness behind her thinking that made this card work.

When I saw it, I was both very amused and touched, despite it not being for me. I thought the card was just too adorable! I couldn’t get over how sweetly my mom had turned a congratulatory baby card into a birthday card, and I gushed to her about the job she’d done with it. (Let’s be honest — I was also a little bit jealous that Sanam had ended up with the cutest birthday card ever.)

Beyond the cuteness of the card, though, I think it was the deeper meaning that really stuck with me — the notion that Sanam, Nikhil, and I would always each be our mama’s baby regardless of how old we were, the amount of time that had passed, or now, the challenging physical separation we experience.

Unsurprisingly, given my mom’s thoughtfulness that we all know and love, she didn’t forget my reaction to Sanam’s card.

Over four years later, for my 25th birthday in 2014, I opened an envelope from my parents only to see — yes — a baby card. (And when I say “from my parents,” I mean that my mom had selected the card, written a special message, then given it to my dad to sign… Sorry Dad, this is a blog acknowledging Mom’s awesomeness, not yours!)

Here’s the front of the card:

On the inside, my mom had written, “Always our little baby — we love you.”

And her little baby I always will be.