Happy Birthday baby boy!

Consider some stats here..

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

7:48 PM

7lbs 9oz, 20 inches long

Black of hair, blue eyes

Lips the color of cherry kool aid

A very proud, exhausted mama there to gape at him in amazement when he was handed to me for the first time


Thursday, August 13, 2009

50 lbs even, 47 inches

Light brown hair, eyes a lovely mix of gray and green

Still in possession of the nicest set of lips known to man

A very proud, often tired mama who still thinks the sun rises and sets on that little dude


I cannot believe my baby is seven years old today. That doesn't seem possible at all. Sometimes if I really try I can remember how it felt to have him living in my body. All that time spent connected, literally and in every other way you could possibly imagine. I wasn't one of those women who loved being pregnant but I enjoyed that connection with my child while he was still my passenger. I recall laying there feeling him move and imagining how different my life will be when he would be moving on the outside instead. Looking back I don't think I had a clue. I knew of love before I met him but not of this strain. I suppose my first aha moment of how things were to about to be so different from before was that feeling I felt when I finally got to meet my boy. I was dumbfounded, for sure. A completely surreal feeling washed over me.. It was amazing to think that this person I was holding had emerged from my body and was my child. I'm a highly emotional person by nature but I was too overwhelmed to cry when I first saw him. The tears and realization that he was indeed here and mine came later on that night. I remember trying to feed him and looking down at his little face and having it all hit me at once - the love I felt for him and the feeling of total bliss and contentment.

Seven years later those feelings are still there, magnified times ten. He has brought so much to my world that I could spend the rest of my life thanking him for making it a better place and it wouldn't be enough. His smiles are my own form of Valium; soothing me when not much else even stands the chance. There has never been another person who has made me feel more loved and valued than that little man. Since the night he was born we've had this amazing bond. People have often said that we are each other's world and I happen to agree and that fact is one of the things in life that I am most grateful for. I've always seen some good examples of how good the mother/son bond could be and I am so grateful I was given the chance to forage that with my little man.

Life has thrown us some twists and turns in the past seven years and the only constant has been the great bond we've had. When he was diagnosed with Autism I honestly didn't know if I was capable of raising a special needs child .. I often wondered if I could rise to the task for him and give him all that he needs to thrive. I still have my days where I wonder that. Supermom I am not, but I am a very loving one and make it my goal that my child is on a constant drip of love from me. It's paramount to me that he knows I accept him as well. I am grateful for each of his abilities and hold out hope that the remaining areas of deficit will show progress. I am thankful that he only has Autism and not an incurable condition and I am so acutely aware of how lucky I am that he is able to express and receive affection. With him not being verbal enough to say "I love you, mama" it would be quite hard if he wasn't the type to express those sentiments with endless kisses and hugs. Thankfully he's a total mush box and I am the lucky one who reaps the benefits of that the most. As I said before, I don't let myself wish he was typically developed. He is who he is and I happen to think that he's amazing, sweet, very smart and simply the cutest boy ever. Bias much, right? You bet!

One of my favorite children's books is one called "I Love You as Much..." Each page of the book shows a baby animal with its mother and is told in a lullaby rhyme form. The mother whale says to her child, "I love you as much as the ocean is deep" and the mother mountain goat tells her baby that she loves him as much as the mountain is steep and so forth. Beautiful sentiments in all but my favorite passage accompanies a depiction of a human mother and her sleeping child and the last line of the book is as follows:

"Now sleep, child of mine, while the stars shine above - I love you as much as a mother can love"

I cannot read that line without tearing up. Such heartfelt words that I completely agree with. There is nothing like that love and I think.. no, I know that I lucked out being given this child. A great person recently said to me that Nick got a break when the big guy handed out moms. Quite flattering but I think it's very mutual. I couldn't ask for a more loving, sweet boy to call my son. I'm so proud of him and intend to spend the rest of my life making him aware of how special he is to me and everyone who knows him. Part of that is because it's my job as his parent and another reason is that I know it is exactly what his Nana would have wanted to do if she had not been taken from him so soon. This is his first birthday without her and as with every first, it's painful. She was always a big part of his birthday and came over for dinner each year on that day to celebrate his day. Her chair may be empty this year but her spirit is with him, I know that.


Happy Birthday, my beautiful bubbalicious boy. Mama loves you!

Here is a video montage I made of some of my favorite pictures of my boy.