To my Jack.
My littlest mini man. My sweet sweet boy. Sweeping gift of grace and healing, my joy and my solemn reminder of our Sovereign and good God. Today you turn ONE.
I remember the night I found out you'd be coming. Admittedly not my favorite night. But you'd surprised me and I was a little scared. I stared out at the calendar in front of me, all the hundreds and hundreds of days it would take before I would be back to the place in life I'd felt we'd just finally reached. No pregnancy, no nursing, no sleepless nights or diapers or high chairs. And my beautiful boy I am so so embarrassed to say, I already felt tired. And unsure if it might just actually kill me to go through them all again.
Well. Here we sit. Past the 10 months of pregnancy. Already 365 days in to your life on this earth. And it went by so fast! So so fast! In fact if I could go back now, I'd bring you home from that hospital on day one and live every one of those 365 days over again. (please note I did NOT say the pregnancy part. Um, no thank you.) But relive this past year? In a heart beat. Without hesitation.
The past 365 days were days filled with smiles and wonderment and awe. Days of laughter and sweet stillness; days of crazy, wild fullness. You have surged more joy into this last year of my life than I ever dreamed possible. You are like the piece of the puzzle we had no idea was missing. You bring peace and completion to our family. Your biggest brother loves you with an affection I've never seen on him before, when he sees you his features instantly melt to a soft happy twinkly-eyed smile, he's so protective and caring and fixated on you. It's amazing. Your sister is so proud of you, so patient and kind and encouraging, she serves you and cares for you and she has clearly won your adoration. And your other two brothers are so thrilled to pieces about you I think they might actually turn you in to pieces sometimes. And you handle them with all the patience and grace of a good natured puppy, which they may actually think you are from time to time. :)
I always hear people saying how children grow up so fast we moms need to be careful not to wish the little years away. There was a time when I let that strike panic in my heart because I knew how often I felt like I was limping and gasping my way through them. And even the joyful moments would get buried under all that hard that I'd forget they'd even existed and be wracked with guilt that I wasn't sure I was soaking up all that I could. So I'd scramble to make memories, record events, write as many things down as I possibly could. As though taking record of the little years was the same as enjoying them. Well Jackson Wayne. You may be the youngest of 5, and as you grow up, there may be jokes of how you get the raw end of the deal, from having barely any pictures of you in my belly, to there being no scrapbooked baby book in sight, to having no idea when you first rolled over or what foods you first liked. I may not have written a single post on this blog since the day you were born, but here is what I DID do.
I savored you.
I breathed in your scent, I memorized your nose and cheeks. I nuzzled your neck, I cradled you and stroked the pudgy tops of your feet for hours. I rocked you to sleep more times than Babywise would have EVER recommended.
Some days, I'd close you and I into your room to change a diaper or get you dressed, and we'd giggle and babble and stare at each other for waay too long while we pretended there wasn't a tornado of other children running amuck in the rest of the house.
In those precious first months, I'd take you, just you, sleeping and snuggly in my sling and we'd enjoy long grocery store trips, fun nights with girlfriends, day trips and weekend retreats. And it was so perfectly simple and sweet to have just one little baby, I drank in every bit of that time with you.
In these last few months, when we've had a cherished couple mornings a week when all 4 of your siblings are in school. I'd again take you; just squishy, smiley, happy you, and we'd stroll through our errands or get coffee with friends. I walked slow, I stared in your eyes, we giggled and baby talked and I'd end up wandering aisles aimlessly just playing with your sweet baby self.
I may not have written down your sleep/eat schedule like all the other kids, but that's because you basically trained yourself I didn't even have to teach you anything! And you may have had to go with the flow and get dragged around from event to event instead of napping in your crib or getting to bed at exactly 7. But you slept like a champ wherever we went and then went right back to sleeping in your crib when we were home. Easy going and a lover of sleep. You my child are a miracle baby!
I never once rushed a bedtime with you. In fact sometimes you'd be so excited for bed you'd dive out of my arms into your crib and I couldn't even rock you, so I'd lean over while you lay all bottom up, face buried in your blanket, and I'd stroke your hair and kiss your cheeks for an obnoxiously long amount of time. You'd stare at me with the one eye not buried and a sleepy little smile poking out from your pacifier and just let me linger, like you knew it was for me even more than for you. Of all the savoring that went on this year, that was my favorite by far.
Jackson, as the days keep coming I know your baby-ness will continue to slip through my fingers. And maybe I won't remember these kinds of moments specifically because I didn't stop time to write them down or take as many pictures of them. And maybe I can't treasure every second of every crazy day to come in this household of ours. And I know that because there's four other people doing everything before you, sometimes it might not feel like anything you do is new or exciting. But I can promise you this. I enjoyed you this year. I looked at you, I saw you and I loved every minuscule aspect of who I saw, and I will continue to do so every year of your sweet little life.
And so I'm writing this now to tell you, don't you dare let the fact that I can't remember when your first tooth came in make you think you don't matter in this family. We love you so much it seems impossible to imagine there was a time you weren't a part of it.
Plus, I threw you a fantastic first birthday party. So number five, schmumber schmive. There will always be that.
I love you precious boy. Happiest Happy Birthday.
