Kissy Mischief Lips

Today, M and I were playing around and I was pretending to give him lots and lots of kisses. Now that he is getting older, he always tells me, "Mom, stop giving me so many kisses." But, what he doesn't know is that asking me to stop kissing him is almost like asking me to stop breathing. I love him SO much that I just have to kiss him sometimes. After all that B and I have been through on the "family planning" front, I honestly look at M and feel deep, abiding gratitude for his presence in our lives every single day. I wonder if parents who have not struggled as we have remember to feel gratitude for their child(ren) every day. I sure hope so.

Anyway, I digress. While we were playing and I was pretending to try to give M "too many kisses", he at one point yelled out "Keep your kissy mischief lips away from me!" I started laughing and I asked him if only I had 'kissy mischief lips' or all women. "Oh, all girls have kissy mischief lips," he replied. I'm making sure to record this so that when he is a teenager I can remind him that girls have 'kissy mischief lips' and he should be aware.

Born to read

There are many, many things that I adore about our son, but his love of reading is definitely toward the top of the list. Today he told B, "Dad, you know I was born to read." How adorable is that?!

If you get him a new chapter book, he will sit down, tune out the entire world and just READ for hours. I can very much appreciate this because I can do the same thing and used to do it a lot when I was a kid. My mom was always telling me to "get your nose out of that book" and I have given her a hard time about this for years. "Who tells their daughter to stop reading?" I always tease. Well, I hope she is reading this particular post because lately I have heard myself saying, "M STOP reading that book right now and...[put on your shoes, get ready for school, set the table for dinner]" and half of the time he holds the book in one hand and tries to comply with what I have asked him to do while not actually losing physical contact with the book. While the grown-up side of me finds this to be irritating because it is usually at a time when we need to be doing something else and in a timely fashion, the kid side of me remembers so well loving to have my book and not wanting to tear myself away. I hope his love affair with books lasts a lifetime!

Happy birthday to M

My sweet baby boy turns 6 today! I cannot believe that he is 6 years old already. Feels like we just brought him home from the hospital last week, sometimes. Now, unlike some moms, I don't cry at each birthday because so far every year has held joy and discovery as I watch my little man grow into the person he is destined to become. But, I will take this opportunity to reminsce a little.

Bringing M home from the hospital was joyful and overwhelming all at once. Having arrived a little early, he had jaundice and we had to keep going to the pediatrician's office every day for them to prick his tiny heel to see if his bilirubin count was going up or down. We tried putting him near the window for sunlight. We tried feeding him formula, which is better for jaundiced babies, they say. But he hated it so much that he refused to swallow it and just sat there glaring at us with his mouth open and the formula laying in his mouth. We finally used the nose suction bulb from the hospital to suck it back out. (We really should have been aware at that point ath he was going to be one stubborn child!) Finally, on Saturday, Feb. 14, they told us that he needed a bilirubin blanket to help resolve the jaundice. The only problem was that it was a long weekend and the only places that our insurance covered were either closed until Tuesday or out of bilirubin blankets. But he couldn't wait until Tuesday, he needed one now. They finally found one and it was brought to our house. The thing had a very short cord, so you always had to sit or place him in a seat near the socket. We had to drag his crib halfway across the room to stay close to the equipment and it was so frustrating. Then, my brothers and my dad showed up on Sunday and the boys came to the door, bursting out of the car in their excitement to see M, they left my dad way behind. They got to the door, took one look at M and yelled back out the door, "Hey Dad, M is here and he is glowing!!" It is one of my favorite memories of those first few, sleep-deprived, overwhelming weeks.

And that was 6, SIX, years ago. My oh my how time flies.