" you'll be...
his first kiss
his first love
his first friend.
you are his momma and he is your whole world.
he is your little boy."
My sweet, sweet boy. I can't believe how quickly he is growing up. My heart is torn between being fascinated by watching him grow and being devastated that he is growing up. Each month still holds new feats and milestones, but on the other hand, each month says goodbye to old ones. Ones that I love, that I've grown accustomed to. Mispronounced words have become clearly spoken. Jumbled up sentences, full of long pauses, have unscrambled themselves into matter of fact statements, demands, and questions. Oh, the questions. He can't drink up enough of the world around him. Every single tangible and imaginable thing holds an endless slew of questions.
Why does hair grow?
Why does it rain?
Why do we have to tell God thank you?
Why do people be bad?
Why do we have to have the trees?
Why can't I just eat "smarshmallows?"
Where's that truck going?
Where's that man going?
Why the garbage man just take our garbage?
Why does the other side of the "wo-wold" get a turn with the sun?
Why is Easter gone?
No day is left unquestioned... Everyone in my family says its payback. They all get a chuckle out of it because they said I asked "why" so many times it was unbearable. I actually remember that I was banned from that word- so I came up with "how become." ;)
I do love the here and now. Of course this is no fairy tale. He is 3. He still jumps up and down when I say "no shows." He smacks his sister. Daily. He still drinks his bath water. Refuses to eat his dinner. He visits the time out bench. Daily. He has his mother's will and stubborn mind- you will say his name no less than a thousand times. Daily... and I love it all.
He has an engineer's mind.
You can't have doughnuts in this house- he will climb on counters, sneak into cabinets, and hide under tables to eat them. He doesn't care about the punishment. Its worth it to him.
He remembers everything. Mind like a steel trap or an elephant or whatever. He will freak you out with every detail he can recall from times you thought he wasn't paying attention or was too little to remember.
Second name, Magellan. He can direct you anywhere he has been before. He can even navigate some spots in Atlanta. His mind has always "seen" paths. Even as a little tiny baby, he had the layout of a 23,000 square foot office mapped out mentally.
Such a sweet heart. He randomly looks at me, holds my cheek, and says "I very like you mommy." To be "very liked" is the highest compliment you can get from him. (my other favorite compliment was when he told his friend "you want to eat at my house? my mom is a good cooker.")
"cheese makes me happy"
Favorite color is green.
Refuses to use a blanket, because "mommy will just keep me warm."
His imagination is vast and wild.
Oh, its a silly thing to be sad over. Its just a fourth birthday, right? Its just... I remember the first time I saw him. I was in an art college, living alone, spending my days working on my art and hanging out with my best friend. When I realized I was pregnant I was scared obviously, but when I was lying on an exam table staring at the ceiling and the sonographer said "and theres your baby." I looked over at the screen and tears, without my permission came pouring down my face. They were happy tears. I told her he was a boy, she looked at me kind of crazy. Of course he was tee-tiny. He resembled an odd shaped pea pod, but I knew. Same with his name, no back & forth. It just was. Its like he has always been written into my story.
Through my pregnancy with Maddox, I found a strength I didn't realize lived in me. The world unfolded and became clearer- I knew what I wanted to be for him and what I didn't.
I literally reached down, put my hands around his tiny body, and pulled/pushed him into this world. The bond between me and this little being is so deep, so strong, that he hurts and I physically feel my body weaken. He cries and I feel my throat tighten.
When he was born, I posted- "how wonderful life is, now you're in the world." So true. This place is a little brighter with his dimpled smile in it.
I think also, because my dreams are simultaneously coming true it brings me back to the beginning. When you make strides forward, or at least when I do, I like to take a look back and see where I came from. I am learning to let that be my "measuring stick" versus the competitors around me. You know where the fuel to push my photography business came from honestly? There I was a single mom, a girl with her degree on pause, living with her mom, and the only one in this world responsible for this little person. I was up walking the floor with a colicky baby, sleep deprived, and on about the 50th round of "you are my sunshine..." Its like it was yesterday. I looked down at him and told him "I am going to be someone you can be proud of one day." There is nothing and no one that will stop me from keeping that promise.
Hard work, late nights, and a lot of coffee later... here I am. I still have a long, long way to go to reach the goals I have set, but I am on my way.
I love my little boy something fierce. I guess the sadness comes from saying goodbye to this precious and quickly fleeting stage in his life. There are so many changes he will make. Many, many more birthdays ahead. A whole lifetime to celebrate. The excitement of the future outweighs saying goodbye to the past in the end.
Can you imagine when its his first day of kindergarten? Someone is going to have to sedate me. Haha :)
