Six Years Ago Today...

My little man turned six today.

Sometimes - when he's busy pestering me to wait on him hand and foot or talking about farts or whining or running around screaming silly or refusing to wear anything but long johns and an undershirt until we go out - sometimes it's easy for me to forget that for a long, long time I lived and breathed that boy.

There are many days when I'm thrilled to see him off to school and times when I feel as if I am going to blow my top if he says "I'm bored" one more time or if he comes up with another excuse to get out of bed or gives me lip and attitude. Generally, though, when I look at those chocolate brown eyes I melt like an ice cube on a flat rock in July.

My firstborn entered the world at 9 lbs. 7 oz. with no C-section or epidural (roar!). Giving birth to him was truly the most amazing thing I had ever done in my life. What a good baby he was, too. He was very compliant and happy; generally ate well and slept well. In retrospect, I couldn't really have asked for any better, but I worried and fretted and stewed about breaking the baby - this precious bundle that amazed me every day with his very existence. I was one anxious mom for a very long time.

I would spend hours (not consecutive - who has that kind of time?) just staring at this child. When we visited people, part of me really couldn't understand why no one else wanted to just sit around and watch the baby or talk about him incessantly. I was head over heels in love.

I still am, of course. I am a mama bear who would throw herself in front of anything menacing, be it a wild animal, an unruly relative, a freight train or a bully, to protect my boy. It's a scary thing, this kind of love, and it's just as scary how agitated and impatient and unhappy we can be sometimes with those we love the most. This is all part of the live-in-the-moment New Year's resolution. When I think of how I held my baby boy close to me and rocked him and nursed him; when I look into those chocolate browns - it's easy to recapture that intensity and fierceness.

Happy birthday and much love to my little man!