Homegrown Texan

Born and raised in Texas, I've found the home of my heart and soul in the Pacific Northwest. I love trees, cool weather, and rain. I'm a back to basics kind of gal just trying to raise my family and find a bit of time to slow down in this hectic life.

Michael's 6th birthday is coming up next month, and he is sooo excited about it.  He already scheduled a "meeting" with us this week to "talk about stuff like cake, presents, and what park to have it in".  This is the first year we're doing a party with his friends, so he's very excited.  Even cuter...at his school, usually the birthday kid will bring some kind of small gift for the other kids in the class.  Nothing fancy, just some pretty stones, or homemade necklaces...stuff like that.  Yesterday, all on his own, Michael sat down and drew/colored 17 different animals, flowers, etc., cut them out, and then asked for a basket to keep them in until the big day.

So, naturally, I've been thinking about him a lot, and as I guess all moms do, wondering where the time has gone.  It seems impossible that he could have grown up so fast, yet at the same time, his babyhood seems a distant memory.  Sometimes at night I will get him up to go to the bathroom (he's still just a bit shaky on keeping dry all night; this seems to help) and I'll carry him back to bed.  As he clasps his sleepy arms around my neck, I think about what it was like, all those dark nights when I would be up walking the hall with him.  He always had a tough time settling down to sleep.  Oh, how exhausted I was those sleepless nights, but I did make a point of cherishing the quiet time alone.  It's strange to think that that cuddly baby has grown into a still-very-cuddly, but big boy who I can hardly carry back to his bedroom anymore.

I remember when he was born, that I found myself not wanting to go home from the hospital.  Not because I love hospitals...who does?  I hated the whole feeling of someone else being in control of my sweet little baby.  But somehow I felt that maybe if I didn't leave, that those precious early hours would just last forever and ever.  Of course I knew that that wasn't true, but part of me wanted to believe that it could be.  I lived the whole first year of his life acutely aware that every moment was so very fleeting, that I just savored it.  I love that I can appreciate these moments as they happen this way, but it's also an incredibly painful way to live, when you're always so conscious of how time is slipping by, how those moments are gone forever.  And this one...and this one...and this one......

0 comments:

Post a Comment