What a difference a year makes

This time last year, I was getting ready, preparing, getting anxious about being gutted in a few short hours. The things I took to the hospital were laughable really. Stupid. I had no time or energy or yearning to do my hair for God’s sake. I was impressed when I took a damn shower. I was too busy trying to get you to latch on to a boob (a trick you and I never did master together) and trying to sleep on my back which does NOT work.

Tonight, I made the drive home in very little traffic thanks to Veteran’s Day, picked you up from Miss Emily’s and brought you home. You were introduced to chocolate milk today from Emily. Judging by your death grip on the bottle, I’d say you liked it. She said the first small amount she gave you, you just upturned that bottle and never took it down for breath. You will be so popular in a fraternity in years to come if you adopt that particular drinking posture in your later years. I’m just sayin’. You ate a very light dinner since you were chock full of the milk and I baked your birthday cake for tomorrow. It’s just a simple white cake and tomorrow I will whip up some buttercream icing for it. We will then allow you to annihilate it and make a general mess – the way every kid should get a chance to do when they hit such a milestone of a day.

We have both changed so much, buddy. I love watching you change and grow and figure things out. I love when you have something rather small in your hands and you just study it like “hmmmmmm.” You are very contemplative about so many things. Sometimes you are a very typical boy and just plow through life very roughly banging yourself about with nary a thought to, ya know, your skull and its proximity to hard surfaces. You delight in driving Gage crazy. When he starts to do the crazy laps like he was doing tonight, you go into that shrieky type of laughter that I can’t help but laugh at myself.

You have never been a typical or good sleeper. I don’t know why, but for the most part, I stopped struggling against that a few months back. It’s just who you are. I have no clue if at some point you will lay down at night and then not even think of rising for a solid 12 hours, but I suspect not. I think you caught the insane gene from Pawpaw. Your Uncle Kenny got it too. It skipped over me, but as time has gone on, I suspect it landed smack on you. The insane gene is that ridiculous crap that despite whatever time you go to bed, you are ready to say hi to the world at 5. AM. In the morning. Before you, I had long thought that 5 AM was merely a fictitious time made up just to balance things out since there was, ya know, a 5 PM and I was totally acquainted with that 5 o’clock. I never saw 5 AM. I slept right through that crazy ass hour. Not you though. Not only do you get up, but you are UP. And happy. And wanna play. With the loud toys. That’s while mama cowers on the sofa under a blanket and watches TV shows she DVR’s knowing that well hell, might as well, I’ll be up and Lord knows there is nothing on.

You are still not walking alone, but you are awfully close. You fly around the sofa and occasionally will lunge hands free to the other side if you are close to the inside of the L. So your bravery is coming along. It is only a matter of time that you just let go and come on over to say hi one day with no idea of what you had done. Until of course I scream like a lunatic or like the Steelers just scored and completely freak you out and you fall down and cry.

Oh Buddy. I can’t even try to put into words how you have changed my life. I can’t speak for Daddy, but in one way it seems like you were always here, but in others this year has flown by at lightning speed. I am not sure what I expected, but I did not expect you. I mean I knew I’d love you and find you cute and crap like that, but I was ill prepared for just how much I’d enjoy your company. How much you would entertain me. How much I would do to entertain you with not one thought of just how stupid I look or sound in public singing the “I love my Jacob” song in Target or singing Sweet Caroline in Mo’s just to make you laugh. I never thought that I’d ever be okay with sleeping so little and actually SMILING at what woke me up in the first place. I mean, you try to stay annoyed at a little boy in a sleeper bouncing in his crib in glee because FINALLY lady, you got in here to pick me up. JESUS. It’s impossible and if it’s not impossible, well then you are just Hitler.

You love to play Peekaboo and my absolute most favorite thing you do is you thrust your fat foot up in the air at me when I tell you in the rear view mirror how much I have missed those toes and can I please see them – if only for a second? The first time you did that, I laughed so hard I cried. It was so damn funny and I thought for sure, a fluke. But you have repeated it several times since – me begging to see some toes and then all of the sudden, nothing else on your body moves, but your leg goes out at a 45 degree angle from the rest of your body and FLING, there goes the toes for my viewing pleasure.

You brighten my day and my entire world in a way I just never expected. This last year has been the absolute best in my life. I promise you, Buddy, that I will try every day to be a good mama. I will try to get you. I will try to make sure that you feel safe and content. I will try hard to make sure that the bad things in life stay away for as long as I possibly can. I will always remember that you love to play with a little toy while on the changing table. I will make sure that we never run out of Ritz Bitz with cheese. I will keep trying to toss you in the air despite how much it hurts my arms and even though I can’t do it nearly as well as Daddy. You take such delight in it and that’s enough for me. I just promise to take care of you – in every way for every moment of every day.

And all I ask from you is to please keep showing me those toes.

Thank you for a perfect first year, my Jacob. I love you, Buddy.