Thanksgiving

Today, we celebrated in a very quiet way everything that we have to be thankful for. Of course you were high on that list for both daddy and me. Specifically, for me anyway, I was thankful for THE TOES. I just love the piggies. What can I say?

This year, as opposed to last, when you were little more than a blob who, if memory serves, slept right through dinner in your car seat adjacent to the table, you were much more a part of our festivities. Last year, you were SO unimpressed by our gluttony. This year, you gleefully entered the land of way too much food and dove in with delight. I broke up some zucchini, broccoli, carrots and turkey for you into pieces and you just shoved pieces willy nilly into your trap. You even got a taste of some whipped cream from Grandma’s pie that she waited all of 3 seconds after dinner to dive into and really, once you know Grandma, you will know that those 3 seconds probably killed her as she pretty much woke up wanting pie since about 7 AM.

I also have not commented on………let’s call it Gift Fest 2009, or what others probably call your birthday party. Dude. It was not a huge lavish affair, because sorry I just don’t roll like that. I like family and friends to come and eat and enjoy each other’s company which is basically what we did, but yeah, they brought you gift after gift after gift. It was borderline obnoxious. I mean, don’t get me wrong – you are loved. Holy shit on a stick, are you loved. In that way, I thought it was wonderful, but how many toys can one little boy play with, I ask you? Some of them I have stored up in your closet and we will have to rotate them out and others in at some point in the future. We only have so much room, buddy. I hate to ask people to not get you gifts because I remember when Aunt Krista had Wrenna and she was all “Don’t buy her a lot of crap – if you want to give, please contribute to her college fund.” I was like “OK, you big fuddy duddy – we’ll see.” Yeah, now I see. Aunt Krista was on to something brilliant there. She knew first hand just how much STUFF you little people collect. Insert “Mama’s purse fund” in where Aunt Krista has Wrenna’s college fund and I think we have a winner. WHAT? I’m kidding. Sorta.

Actually we just recently opened you up a little savings account of your very own. How stinkin’ cute. Ya know what’s not stinkin’ cute? That on certain days like one day before payday or the day after I pay a crap ton of bills, you have more money than Daddy and me. What the piss is that about, son? That’s some bullshit right there. I’m just sayin’. We work for our cash, son and can I point out that most of THAT cash goes to you too???? You just sit around…..show people the toes and collect the dinero. Something stinks in Denmark.

You are getting closer and closer to walking. You are now balanced enough that you can hold just one hand to either us or whatever and stroll around. ONLY IF YOU ARE IN THE MOOD. You have totally discovered that you can just collapse those fat legs of yours if you are not in the mood and there is not a damn thing we can do to get you to cooperate. You also keep forgetting to hold on constantly and at times, you have let go of the sofa or whatever toy you are leaning against and stand for a moment all on your own and then of course, I very cooly shriek like an idiot and you fall. Why do I not learn this lesson?

Your adjustment to going to see Ms. Emily three days a week is still going well. She tells me that you play with the other boys and she has yet to mention any hair pulling/biting/bitch slaps etc so I guess you are not in danger of getting kicked out yet. That’s always good. It is always such fun to drive up and if Emily hears me, she will open the door for you to see me coming. Man, you truck your little butt up to that door and start banging on it like “Did you know it’s dark? It’s dark, mama, and you not get me ALL day and now you are just coming and HELLO, it’s dark.” I pick you up and sometimes you just look at me like “Hey, you came back again…..cool.” And then my most favorite, is when I pick you up and you look at me and then lay your head down on my shoulder like “I just stay here, okay?” Man I love that.

One of the funniest things you do and it’s sorta in line with you beating ass to the door at Emily’s is you love to lean against the storm door here and look out. If I, heaven forbid, go out to take garbage out or check the mail or whatever, you fly over to the door and I inevitably come back to the door to find a very irate little boy with both hands flung up over his head banging away. Then once you see that I see you, you scream in happiness and bang even harder. It’s hard to not find that irresistible. I mean, it’s just that cute.

Well buddy, this year I am thankful for you and the fact that you are healthy and usually happy (USUALLY) and that we are able to take good care of you. I can’t imagine being one of those people who look at their children and worry about feeding them or making sure they are safe. Daddy and I belly ache sometimes about working hard and moan, whine, bitch, whatever. I guess that’s normal, but we are so blessed, buddy. We are able to keep you warm and fed and clothed and just having the ability to do that for you brings me a level of contentment that heretofore only came with the purchase of a really pretty comforter or a purse with such soft leather, it made me utter words IN PUBLIC like “ooooooh, it feels like buttah.”

So you now trump purse and comforter purchases. That’s pretty big. You can brag to your friends later in life about that one.

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Fun and games while Dad’s home

I have never seen a kid more ridiculously excited that a parent is home than you are that daddy’s here. If I was the jealous type, this would piss me right off. I really enjoy it though. However, once he does go back to work, I am really not looking forward to your fits. You already get irritated as shit when he leaves to go to therapy or a doctor’s appt. You get downright snotty. Grandma and I try to entertain you and you pretty much dismiss us with a wave of your hand disdainfully like “You….you are peasants….send me the funny guy……you all are just the opening act. Pffft.”

You are still not crawling and any time we lay you down to encourage this action, you try mightily to get the limbs coordinated, but it’s just not happening and you are beyond annoyed that it won’t work. You have the whole fling oneself forward from a seating position down pat though. Thankfully you don’t do that while seating on the floor, just the bad. Methinks a face plant into the carpet regardless of softness factor would not feel good. Not to mention the amount of dog hair you would inhale immediately.

I think you are about to blaze forth with another growth spurt though. Your eating. Son. It’s out of control. You sit down and have three meals a day as well as bottles interspersed among that. Each week, I purchase what I think is the correct amount of food of several varieties and for the last three weeks, I have underestimated your piggishness and had to make a mid week dash to the store. Sigh. It appears that this week I finally got it right. The correct amount is crap ton and the price is shit load. Just FYI. I initially thought that this week I had overshot your ingestion amount but this evening, you ate a cool 5-1/2 containers of food in one sitting, so yeah, it appears I finally found the right amount. And again, it’s crap ton.

Also on the food front, you FINALLY like some fruit. Specifically, pears. For the longest, we would try various things and fruit combos and you make the most hilarious faces while you also gagged. We all tried intermittently to see if your taste buds changed or evolved at all, but it’s just been in the last week that you finally allowed fruit to hit your tongue without acting like we were pouring straight arsenic down your gullet.

By far, the funniest thing that you do is look at us and then do this head tilt thing. I will have to capture a picture of you doing it because description does not do it justice. It’s hilarious and I would challenge anyone to not find you absolutely perfect after seeing that particular expression and gesture. It’s beyond cuteness.

You want to walk by all means. Like bad. This evening, while we were both sitting on the floor, you gripped my shirt and pulled yourself up completely with no help from me whatsoever. I have not really helped much in the past so much as helped you balance, but tonight I did not even do that and you yanked your little pot bellied self right up. Sigh. I’m not ready for all this growing up, son. I’m just not.

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You slay me

I forgot to mention in the last post I did for you that you have a new obsession.

Hair. Specifically, MY hair and grabbing it in handfuls and pulling. Hard. Which that sounds craptacular and painful, but your expression of such true delight and the manical laughter that erupts from your little body is so hilarious that I let you do it over and over.

Your laughter is one of the best sounds in the world. Which is why I have no problem making a total ass out of myself in public on the regular.

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You are my sunshine

****EDITED TO ADD****

The swaddle is now gone. We had a really horrific night that I don’t want to go into, but you are now adjusting to life sans swaddle. It’s for the best, but you do love to stress you mama out, my sweet boy.
********************

Well, things in a lot of ways have calmed down where you are concerned and then you are also changing so darn much that I hate that I am not detailing every little fart/fuss/babble, but it’s impossible. You do keep mama hoppin’, that’s for sure. Daddy has been a bit incapacitated of late, so while you have DELIGHTED in having him home, he is not too much help lately because due to his injury, he can lift no more than 10 pounds. You are a lot of things son, but less than 10 pounds? You have not seen the light side of ten pounds since about 3 days after your birth. That brings me to your eating. Wow. We had started you off with a bit of food here and a bit of food there and you would sometimes turn your head away. Then we started feeding you food before your bottles and holy shit. It’s like all your taste buds woke up and you were like squash! sweet potatoes! turkey AND green beans (which is the most unappetizing of shit green, but you mow through it regardless). Now we are trucking you through as few as 4, but some days as much as 6 containers of food a day. I’m about this close to doing a combo sweet potato/squash garden out back just to save a few bucks, but I’m notsomuch with….ya know….dirt, so I think I’ll still with my friend and yours, Mr. Gerber. I mean, much love to the insane mamas who sit and puree food for 8 hours on a Sunday, but that just ain’t me.

You are super close to crawling too. For the longest time, you would sit on your stomach and just look at me like “Look! I’m all pushed up with my arms…..” but that was as far as you got. Never had a clue what else to do. Daddy and I just figured you would get it at some point and it seems like lately here, the synapses in your brain are firing correctly and you are slowly realizing that oh, the knees? They have to be involved. I think you thought they were just a sorta chubby piece of decor before. The halfway point between the chunkalicious thighs and the TOES! But no, son, they have a function. Anyway, this necessitates another task for Daddy and I (and by Daddy and I, I mean, not me. Not at all. I’ll supervise) to start baby proofing. I have looked around the house to see what all is a hazard and pretty much, the entire house is a death trap. So that’s positive, right? I guess we can just do our best to cover some outlets and put those annoying ass cabinet dohickeys on that NO ONE can ever open and then basically cover the rest of your body in Nerf material so that you will just sorta ricochet off the rest of the danger zones. I think that is a totally brilliant plan. Also, you can be used as a super heavy football in a pinch should there be a pick up game that’s down a ball. You are such the multi-tasker.

We have made HUGE strides in the sleep forum. You no longer make prolonged visits to mama and daddy’s bed nor does Daddy bring you out here to crap out on the sofa (your absolute favorite spot). We put the kibosh on that right quick, because no offense to the co-sleepers of the world, but I do not want a 3-year-old and his accompanying pointy joints and potential for wetting the bed on my mattress. I’m selfish that way. We also have you calming your own self down which is really quite amazing since before we had to go through a multi-step system wherein I had to dance only using my left leg, daddy had to balance on two fingers all while doing our taxes with no calculator just to get you into your bed semi-awake and not lose your shit. It was so stressful. Now we plop you in there and walk away. We also purchased a video monitor so that I can see you while you sleep. I know that sounds a tad creepy and I guess it is, but I’m concerned you are going to flip yourself while swaddled (yes, you are still swaddled – let’s not even go to that discussion, ok?) so I can hear everything and see you while you are in slumberville. You are still super mobile in there and have, on more than one occasion, ended up perpendicular in the crib. It’s quite the site when I walk in and you are eyeballing me through the crib slats while you have your chunked up feet propped up on the other side. Never fails to crack me up.

Also, as the post below shows you are now up to a grand total of two teeth. Not quite ready to gnaw on a chicken bone yet, but you are making progress by leaps and bounds. I mean, we only really had you so that the Hooters waitresses would be distracted by your cuteness and therefore bring us other people’s food, so the fact that you are finally starting to man up to your half of this bargain is nice of you. Nothing cuter than a fat baby gnawing on a chicken bone. I’m just sayin’. Just ask a girl in ill-fitting shorts and a water bra. She will totally agree, I bet.

Well son, I can honestly say that I LOVE this age you are at now (for the record, somewhere around 8.5 months). You are funny and find us hilarious which is so good for the ole ego. You are not intimidated by either of us in the least. I can tell you I’m going to give you a whoopin’ and daddy claims that at any moment he will punch you in the throat and you laugh. Not just hehehehe, but a full on crack up session. You are still a bit shy around other people and very much prefer to just check them out from the safety of mama’s arms, which is just fine with me. I do want you to be friendly but not like “let me just walk over to this man I don’t know” sort of friendly. That’s no bueno, ok? You still have people stare at you constantly, which is so funny. You also have quite the issue with staring yourself. Last night in mass, some little boy was getting in trouble behind us and you literally looked way around me to check out him basically getting an ass beatin’. No privacy for him. Nope. Not with you around. Unfortunately you can’t communicate with me what you see, because while it’s okay for a cute hunk of baby to stare at some rotten child getting his punishment, it would be rude for me to stare so I look forward to when you can be mama’s little spy. More things for you to learn. The list is just never ending.

Love you, Poot.

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Absolute joy of my life

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My big man

Hi, my Poot!

My dedication to writing has taken a serious back seat as you can see, but I am pledged to get back on track, because you are doing so many funny ass things that to miss out on them and not get them down to remember for years to come is a huge disservice. So here I be.

You are eating like a champ. You like a ton of veggies. In fact, I really can’t think of any one veg that you don’t gum down in glee. Fruit? Notsomuch. Meat? You literally gagged. Granted, today was your first go round with any sort of animal product, so perhaps it was just a lil rich for your taste, so of course, we will give it another whirl, but you seriously had a look on your face that was equal to the stench coming out of that jar. Truth be told, baby meat smells like ass. I’m not shocked that you don’t love it. However, it’s protein, son. It’s either that or I start ‘roiding you up. We need girth. We need power. We need…..the signing bonus.

You are sitting up by yourself beautifully. In fact, the only time you really fall over is due to your own shenanigans when you are being a butthead and do. not. want. to. bend. to. sit. You do this thing occasionally when you would prefer we hold you up, wherein you rigid up that little body of yours and flat out refuse to bend at the waist in order to cop a squat. It’s so damn stubborn and yet…..I laugh at you. The look of sheer determination on your face is priceless. It’s part “I’m not bending so just quit messing with me” and part “Isn’t my face just cute? Why on earth would you not want to go on holding me up so I can bounce bounce bounce?” It’s this wide eyed look you give that I am thinking will get you out of many a detentions for years to come. Luckily, I am made of steel and such looks are powerless against my super powers.

Shut up.

Your sense of humor is a kick. I spend so much time laughing at you and with you now. Just recently, you are sorta like getting the joke. For months, you would watch us laugh at something funny you did and you were always very curious. Now, you occasionally join in. I doubt you have a clue what is so funny, but it’s cute as shit that you are trying to be a part of it. My favorite is when I point at you, sometimes from all the way across the room and say “You…..are a rotten little boy.” This tickles you to no end. It’s hilarious because not only do you laugh, but it’s this ornery, badass laugh like you know exactly what I’m saying and not only am I right, but holy hell, won’t I just see how right I am in just a few short years. It’s hilarious.

Because of my obsession with your toes, (TOOOOEEEES!!!!!) you now have a foot fetish. Sigh. I really hope you don’t end up being this freak of a man in your later years who runs a web site devoted to men drinking wine out of women’s shoes and such things all because I was a slave to your scrumptious toes. You are transfixed by our toes now too. We sometimes sit outside with you and put you in your bouncer to burn off that last little bit of late evening energy before bathtime. During the hour or so we sit out, occasionally, you will stop bouncing (which is a rarity) and stare down and we know you have found one of our feet and are checking out our toes. I wonder if you look at ours, then at yours and are like “I don’t get it” or if you thinking “You know, mine really are sort of superior, huh?” And bounce bounce bounce. You go back to your activities.

You still get a truly insane amount of attention anywhere we go. I mean, I obviously know just how friggin cute you are and how much personality you have in that little face, but clearly I am not alone in this assertion. Older women particularly seem to be in love with the chunkalicious thighs you currently possess. Normally, I’d skeeve right out at some random stranger touching you (dear God, the germs…..shudder), but it’s cute. I mean, how do I get annoyed at that? They clearly are as transfixed by the rolls of thigh fat that calls to your daddy and me to pinch and tickle, so how do I fault them? Their hearts are in the right place and let’s face it, how does one not grab a handful of baby lovin? I just don’t know.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The really sleepy elephant in the room. You are STILL not sleeping through the night. Sigh. You win. Daddy wins. I held up my fight, son. I quoted book after book and study after study from pediatricians, baby psychologists, random moms who write books (who are experts in the way that I am with my possession of the online MD) wherein they stated that of COURSE small babies could not manipulate. You tiny little creatures do not have the sophistication to know how to work a situation to your advantage. I waged a war, son. I stood firm. I held my head high with a book in one hand and the Dr. Sears website at the ready in the other hand. I would prevail. My son would sleep through the night when he was ready, damn it, and not a moment sooner. I would not abandon my son. No, sir. Not I. I….was ready to martyr myself out for my boy if need be. I……would get up at night and see to his needs. I……would do all of this with a smile.

I……am tired.

Sigh. THEY WIN. I sorta quietly let your six month birthday go by quietly knowing that the same books I held fast to, the studies, the articles…..oh, son, the ARTICLES….page after page of information that I crammed crammed crammed into my skill…..those books never mentioned what happened after six months. Hmmmm. That’s interesting. I consulted other books. Surely. SURELY, there are children who have wonky sleep past six months, right? RIGHT? Yeah, sick babies. (You are healthy as the proverbial horse) Malnourished babies. (Let’s just not even go there). Premies (Um, again….no). The books would have the answers!!!!

They did not. And why? Because, and I love you son, I do….but you are a manipulative little shit. You want to hang out at 2 AM. You wake yourself up because, well, surely mama is having a party in her room, and son of a BITCH if you are going to miss it. There is no earthly way you are hungry, yet you get up and slurp down that bottle like if we did not give it to you, surely your tiny body would wither away and you’d be a mere shell of your former self. Manipulation, son, not only did you write the book, but I think you are manning the lecture circuit. You are the expert. I have met my match and he is, as it says above, two feet tall and bulletproof. You may as well stand up in your crib, toss the Boppy on the floor and go “Booyah, bitches, how you like me now? Now go fix me a bottle.”

Sigh. I really thought you’d like, oh I don’t know, back me up or something. Is that too much to ask, really? I carried you for 40 long weeks, son. You were BIG. You loved to stretch and poke your tiny, stabby extremities into my bladder and lungs. You made me give up my formerly perfect figure (shut it) to accommodate your incubation period. I now have giant purple marks across my used-to-be flat abs (seriously, shut it)…..all for you, son. And this is my repayment? You prove me WRONG? Would it have killed you at say 20-24 weeks, to blissfully start sleeping through the night so that I could smugly look at your daddy and go “See, dear….I know my son…and he is wonderful and perfect and would never EVER manipulate us if he did not just need our love in the wee hours of the morning.” You COULD NOT GIVE ME THAT BIT OF GLEE????? Well, damn it.

So it’s game on, little boy. For the next couple of weeks, we are tweaking your diet a tiny bit (hopefully you will grow accustomed to the gross meat, but due to that smell, I completely get why you wouldn’t….seriously…HORK), but then when grandma goes out of town, your dad and I are buckling down….bringing in supplies…..battoning down the hatches and we are taking you on. We are no longer Poland to your Hitler. We are no longer Pearl Harbor to your Japan. Oh no. WE are the parents. YOU, while oh-so-cute, are the child. And frankly? Mama needs sleep, buddy. I love you and could look at that face all the livelong day, but NOT at 2 AM, 3 AM or any AM before 6, ok? O’dark thirty is not a time to wake up and come visit. It is not.

So this is allllll over for you, buddy. Enjoy the next couple of weeks because your little nocturnal trips across the hall are coming to a rapid close.

Oh, and that puddle in the corner? That….will be me. Sigh.

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Six months….

As I type this, I am listening to you on the monitor. Every peep, every noise makes me squinch down in my seat and pray that you are not waking up. You have been rough lately, my boy. Our day starts anywhere from 5:30 to 6 AM every day – whether I work or not. You are not so much interested in whether I need to punch a clock that particular day. You just wake up, are over being horizontal and greet me with a “hi mama” face which, thankfully for you, is tres cute and normally is complete with one leg on out of the swaddle and kicking gleefully in anticipation of (a) a clean behind and (b) a full belly.

I have been woefully absent due to just really being exhausted by the end of the day. Really, right now, I hear my sheets calling along with a book that you need all of three brain cells to read (literature? not really my thing – luckily I did not need it for my online MD). However, this is my gift to you. Really, it is my gift to myself too because one day, this will all be a blur. I won’t remember the screaming, the hollering, the stiffening of your entire body because YOU. DO. NOT. WANT. TO. SIT. RIGHT. NOW. I think this is what possesses people to have more than one child. I have mentioned many times that what saves you is that face.

You can be hollering and yelling and just really annoyed with the whole world and why, for the love of God, do we not understand what you want and DAMN IT, your teeth hurt and grandma will bring you out here for a second, mid scream, and you turn around and look at me and laugh. Like a fully belly laugh and then you shove your face into grandma’s shoulder like “I’m so shy – you just don’t understand.” It is that right there….that laugh or the face or whatever it is that makes you YOU…..the Jake essence, if you will, that saves your little behind from being sat out on the porch with a sign that says “free to someone who does not mind noise or owns stock in ear plugs.”

You had your six month check up just this past week. I really can not believe that you have been with me for six months. Well, really you have been with me sixteen months, but you know what I mean. You are still a big lad – 22 pounds, 6 ounces, 28.5 inches long and a 45 cm head circumference. The most telling of those measurements is that you have sprouted up the percentile chart for your length/height. I hope hope hope that you are nice and tall like daddy and not a garden gnome like your mother. I was a bit worried being that you seem to have gotten my short, rather…….what’s the word I am searching for…..round…..ish….roundish legs and I thought you might be cursed with the plight of the shorty. I am also holding on to hope that you will surprise us all and go the route of your brother and sister and be the long, lean, slender type. Well, ok, not slender. We need a football scholarship and let’s face it, unless you can run like a streak of lightning, you need some ass behind you. We will take care of all that later….don’t you worry. Mama will introduce you to her friend. His name is Bacon.

Anyway, you had to get shots again. I did slightly better as in the tears did not physically leave my eyeball area. So that’s good, right? Progress and all that. Next time you only get one needle stick so I’m glad for that. I think I hate it more than you do.

You are making your way through veggies as well. You really like sweet potatoes, squash (hork), and green beans. You tolerate carrots, but truth be told, you’d rather squash if given a choice. You are very slowly getting that the food goes IN and stays IN the mouth. At first, it was just one giant vegetable massacre as it looked like I had bathed you from the waist up in whatever unfortunate food you had decided to cram in your ear. It can be a cool two hours later and I will see a section of your face/neck folds/ear canal that has remnants of a meal that has long since been over. Sigh. I wish I could blame this lack of coordination on your father, but let’s just say that daddy can come home and know instantaneously if I had salsa while he was gone. What can I say? It’s a gift.

You are also still not sleeping through the night. Oh, you teased me there for a while – going til 5:30 or so off and on for a few weeks, but then, WHAM, six month growth spurt and toofers. You were pissed the hell off, hungry, and please bring that finger over here so I can chew on it, thankyouverymuch. I am hoping that we are past the crest of the worst part of this, but who knows? One thing I have learned is that you are making the rules here. I am just along for the ride. A lackey. A minion. Basically, I’m your bitch.

One would think I’d mind that, right? Oh, and sometimes I do. Like those days when sitting you on the porch seems totally reasonable. But normally, I am frustrated for maybe 30 seconds and then you do something ridiculously funny and stupid and cute and I don’t mind so much. If I am forced to be someone’s bitch, at least you look like this.

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Proof that God loves fat babies

Because cankles and straining the snaps on your onesie is cute, but only until age like maybe 2.

I have it on good authority that it is no longer cute at age 35.

Whatever.

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You are so stinkin’ cute

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My growing boy

Oh my buddy. Guess what you just did? Turned your fat little self right over. You have been getting so strong lately that I knew it was coming. If you could coordinate all your chubby limbs to do what you needed them to do at the right time, I figured you’d flip right over.

Well, you and I were on the floor playing and I put you on your belly with some toys. For quite some time now you have held your head up beautifully at a full 90 degrees (which considering the size of said melon is really quite the feat) and had sorta flopped over to your side which was so close to the flip but you just had not made it yet. But today when you did the flop to the side, you were sooooo close. I, of course, being that I am always so calm and cool (shut up) just sat there holding my breath willing you to go all the way over. I took the toy that you had been eyeballing and held it up above your head thinking perhaps you’d continue the path to being totally on your back.

Then all of the sudden before I knew it or you knew it, you went right over and thunk, landed on your back. I think you banged your head a little bit on the landing. That combined with this ear splitting shriek that erupted from me freaked you out and made you cry. Nice, right? Anyways you finally did it. 🙂

Also, it’s been a while since I have updated and in that time you have had your 4 month check up. You were a cool 19 pounds, 6 ounces and 26 inches long. I don’t remember how big your head circumference was but we went to an end of the tape not used often as evidenced by the fact that it was a whole other color. I’m sorry for the big pumpkin, son, but if it’s any consolation, you carry it beautifully. You also had to get two shots – one in each chunky thigh. I hate those, son. HATE. THEM. For the first time, it made me cry. You were so upset and I think, more than those really hurting you, they scare you and shock you and freak you out. Makes me wanna punch the nurse giving them but I hold back because oddly enough, I doubt the doctor would appreciate that. Whatever. Let me shove a needle in your leg, doc, and see how you like it.

Your dad and I have commented so often about how much joy you bring us, buddy. I’m not going to lie. There are day that I reach an even higher level of exhaustion than I had the day before when I was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN yesterday that this…this day right here….I was as tired as I was ever going to be. Then the next day, I’m like “Oh…wait. No, today I’m much mo tahred. Nevermind.” There are days you holler at NOTHING. I have no clue what you want or what combo of fun activities will thrill you until we happen upon the right thing and you look at me like “Duh, this was always what I wanted and why you can’t figure that out is beyond me, woman.” Some nights when you get up to have a meal, I lay there and think “Man alive, how much longer will it be until I get a full night’s sleep?” Oh yes. All those things occur. But those times are like 1/10th of 1% of the time. Honestly. I’m not sugar coating it so that when you read this in later years, you think it was a cake walk. Um, no. Not a cake. Not a walk. This is, by far, the most difficult thing I have ever done. You. Are. Exhausting. But it’s a fantastic exhaustion. I can be at the end of my rapidly unraveling rope and then you will look at me and crack up (probably at the new wrinkle you helped to put on my forehead) and I mean, how do you stay annoyed at that? I’m sorry but if there is a person who could stay irritated at that face, I’d want to peel back their skin to ensure that they were truly human. It’s just not possible. You are just such fun, my Poot. As much as I love this age that you are where you laugh at us, I really can’t wait to see how your personality continues to develop. I think you are going to be such a riot.

I’m just so glad that I get to be your mama.

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