It’s the day of your third birthday and I feel pensive and weepy. I can’t pinpoint the source but I’m guessing it has something to do with me loving you so much it makes my skin prickle. My love for you is fierce, little one. It alone can bring me to tears. It has and will never waiver. In a timberland of trees, my love for you is the Redwood. Rooted, strong, unstoppable.
I don’t blog about you often and it is not symbiotic with my love for you. No, that is not the case at all. The blog is called “Finding the Joy” for a reason. When your brother was born, I had to search long and hard for joy. I broke out the shovel and the head-lamp. I didn’t give up until I struck pure gold. Through blood, sweat, tears and time I was able to find that joy oh how it sings now……but with you, I never had to search. I never wondered if I could love you enough, or if the sadness would grab it’s carry on and get the hell out. With you, I checked for ten fingers and ten toes and then we let the love-fest begin.
I do what I do and I analyze both you and Judah. I question my decisions and I agonize for not getting it all right. For Judah, I hurt because his welcome into this world was a somber one. I wonder if deep in his soul he will remember, that for a little while, sadness hung like a thick fog??? With you, there is an ironic ache because it was, well, perfect. There was no celebration of health, no music made for milestones…At the time, who knew there should be? You did it all so lovely that we came to only know loveliness. During a time that seems ancient, I made you a lullaby too. When you were little and didn’t yet quite take up all of my arms, I would sing it to you. And now days, as you spill over in my embrace, I still sometimes do. I called you the bug-a-boo and one line resonates with me: “loving you is like breathing air, I couldn’t live without you there…” What I meant at the time was that I needed you like I need air. That is still so very true… but it is also so much more. Loving you is as EASY as breathing air. From your deepest depths to your flawless face I know how lucky I am to be your mom. There’s nothing quite like peering into your crystal blue eyes . I want to swim in them. I get to see those eyelashes everyday; the kind imagined when butterfly kisses were invented. I could kiss your perfectly round, rosy lips a thousand times a minute and I live to play with that squirrely blond hair, the kind that has a mind of it’s own …. And that’s just dipping my fingers in the frosting, what’s inside is even yummier…
Some days you’ll tell me you love me a hundred times and oh, my heart on those days. The smile you have when you are with your family illuminates your whole face… and the whole world. You ask for nothing more than allowing us to revel in your imaginary world. A world with lined up trains, super heroes fighting bad guys, trophies, pancakes, forts, cars, planes, castles and everything else a little boy can dream up. You take our hand and pull us, with you urging us ever-so-not- gently, saying “c’mon guys.” When work and laundry and bills pull me away from “c’mon guys” my heart already aches for the days those moments will be lost. But for now, I am the lucky one. Wonder, pure love and sweetness ooze from your every pore. So much that even your bad days sparkle a little bit.
Don’t even get me started on seeing you and your brother together. The way you just jumped right in and took that big brother role ever so seriously. You cuddle, teach, kiss, and tattle. You are so proud, so loving, so unbelievably kind it could alone cause global warming. You my dear are something special. You knew, even in the beginning when the going was tough. You knew that all would be better than okay. You too often asked why I was crying and said “its okay momma.” It is okay Calvin. It is okay because you teach me everyday how to be in love with everything you see and your soul is the purest air to breathe. I am pensive and weepy this birthday because you are so dear to me. I can’t wait to see you grow and I want you to stay the same. I miss you every second, even as I tuck you in. I am sadly sentimental because I soak you all in like a sponge, wring out the luckiness for getting to be your mommy…and it is still not enough. I am reflectively nostalgic because I don’t want to forget one second of you being 3 or 3 and one day or whatever age you are. Finally, I am so many feelings today because I can barely wrap my head around the fact that we created such a creation. I am inexplicably proud, overwhelmed with love, drenched in gratitude and utterly enamored. Happy Birthday my bug-a-boo. Loving you is breathing air.
Finding The Joy 