I am here right now partly because I love Valentine’s day, partly because I know if I don’t post these pics before March creeps up–I never will, but mostly because I just read my friend Melissa’s extremely true and very funny post and it got me out of bed and to my computer with an echoed “Amen”!
Now that I am much more of an Instagrammer than a Blogger (that feels like a dagger to my heart), and there are new people in my virtual life that have no idea why I have this bizarre passion, I feel the need for a little explanation. So, if you made it over here from Instagram-Welcome! There is a bit of the back-story and one of my most favorite V-day ghost memories here, and if you care about what we were up to in 2009, 2010, and 2011 you can have a good laugh at how much we’ve changed, like I just did. In 2012, Jay Paul was a few weeks old so a card to our friends was about as creative as I could be.
After two years of slacking, it was time to make a Valentine’s Day Ghost comeback! I decided I wanted to create a breakfast “picnic in bed” for a few of our friends and family (who were in town on the big day).
No, I did not make the yogurt, but I did slice the fruit 😉
And I made some granola.
Ordered some coffee from our favorite Seattle dealer!
And while I tried to tell myself to step away from the plastic-ware, I just could not resist rolling them up.
Packed away with some coffee cups.
And away we went with our little red baskets–who made me so happy I wanted to pinch them!
I was also in charge of Mary Aplin’s class Valentine’s day party. Here I was finishing up the cupcakes with two of my goblins.
And don’t you worry for a second that I forgot my true Valentine this year! He lost his wedding ring (Again!). It happens a lot in the OR–at least if you are my husband. You aren’t allowed to wear a ring when you’re scrubbed in, so he ties it in the tie on his britches. Then, if he changes clothes before coming home…down the laundry shoot goes the ring. His mother warned me about this dilemma before we got married. Prepared as I was, I haven’t bought a ring from a jewelry store since that first ring (almost) 10 years ago. We have bought rings at Walmart, from street vendors, and even fashioned them from random scraps lying around the farm.
I decided it was time for a real ring again…
And since it was a real ring, it came with a real proposal.
I paraded through his busy clinic with these balloons, then got down on one knee and asked him to marry me–again.
He said yes 🙂
And then we went away for the weekend to a friend’s farmhouse with four other couples who are dear to us. I will hold back from dumping all those shots on you, but this is my favorite from the weekend. Jeremiah and I came in from a morning run to find all these busy little bees happily preparing breakfast together. I love community.
Almost as much as I love Valentine’s day.
Dear Jay Paul
Everybody told me that little boys were different, but your sister (Dapples) was so tom-boy-like I was sure that I had already experienced the rough and tumble life a boy would bring. Oh how wrong I was! It’s not enough for you to look at life, or touch it, or taste it…you want to SMASH it. Everything you pick up, you slam back down, and if you can’t pick it up (say my face, for instance) you smack it or smush it until someone makes you stop. The most delicate handling we’ve seen occurs with your pointer finger. You love to point with that single outstretched digit and cry, “This! This!” until someone names it for you. Then, once satisfied that you’ve heard the object’s name, you go in for the fingernail swipe, as though you plan to hook whatever it is, there on your fingertip. So what, if it happens to be your sister’s eyeball!
One Day
One Month
You pull hair mercilessly. The only place you are truly happy is on my hip, and if I happen to need both of my arms for a minute or two, then you pull up on my legs, look up to me with utmost pleading and whimper and cry until I sweep you back up. You hate schedules. Deny them positively. Just as soon as I think I have one down, you decide to change your mind. And this has always been your attitude towards sleeping through the night. You may have slept your first 8-hour stretch at 6 weeks, but that didn’t mean you wanted to do such a thing EVERY night. Sometimes you’ll sleep all night long for a month in a row, but then for three weeks in a row you wake up once or twice, just like you want to be sure we still know you’re there. Your Daddy has started referring to you as our one-year-old newborn.
Two Months
Three Months
Despite all these things, none of us can resist you. You are unquestionably the current darling of the family. Mary Aplin takes your hair pulling with a smile. Pace actually requests that you try to bite her. Daddy calls you “My Boy” and says “Give me a keeesss” (kiss) in a stickily sweet voice that I never imagined he could create. And as for me…well…I think I am the most hopeless of all. I adore every last little ounce of you, even though I miss my second arm and wish you wanted to play independently for longer than 3 minutes at a time eeeevery once in a while, I wouldn’t trade my time being your (sorry to the rest of the family) uncontested favorite for one second. You are my boy.
Four Months
Five Months
I’ve loved the quiet times, feeding you in the dark. I’ve loved the exciting times, watching you discover new things and delight in the smallest joys. I’ve loved watching you shine as soon as your sisters come into view. I’ve loved seeing the way your Daddy cherishes you. I even love the passion that makes you smash and overturn everything in your path, because it gives me a glimpse of the strong man I know you will be one day. It helps me to cherish these long days with you on my hip, because I know they are short.
Six Months
Seven Months
Your smile is like a little white pony tied with a big red bow on Christmas morning. Your laugh is like the tinkle of raindrops on a tin roof. Your squeal is like breathless joy.
Eight Months
Nine Months
Your first words started at around 9 months. It’s always hard for me to know when babies REALLY know what they’re saying, but we think your first word was “Dada”, followed closely by Sis (for sister), Lala and Lili (the two favorite dogs in your life), and Mama. You love to tell us “Night, night” and “Bye Bye”. You look forward to your morning and night “Baba” (bottle). And at Thanksgiving you loved to bat at anyone’s hand who approached you (on my hip) and say “Na, Na!” (translation “No! No! don’t you take me away from my Mama.”) Papa is a solid word in your repertoire, and there are a few others that your mother is still not solid in translating.
Ten Months
Eleven Months
You are a gift. You are so stinkin’ hard. You like to wrestle and give big open-mouth kisses that frighten and delight us both. You are all rough boy and a squeezable cuddle-bug. You charge at life.
Twelve Months
Happy Birthday Babybus, and Happy New Year too.
1st Birthday
{Yes, this letter is 3 days late. His birthday was New Year’s Eve}
This morning I was calling around to some Mother’s Morning Out programs to see if I might find a place for Jay Paul to go a couple mornings a week (starting after Christmas). I’m not sure why this sent me into an emotional tail spin, but it did. I got so sad about my little man growing up. And sometimes, although I can’t explain why, there’s no greater solace to a sad heart, than making words rhyme :). So, while I am truly a bad poet, I wrote a poem anyway. And now I am feeling ever so much better.
Whitney, I can actually hear you laughing now, telling me this is too dramatic and that I am shaping up to be the scariest mother-in-law in the history of the world. But here it is anyway 🙂
Every single great man,
Was once a mother’s baby boy.
All that strength she held within her arms,
Would soon stand firmly on the floor.
She watched his fingers fumble,
To grasp the toy and hold tight.
Now she watches with pride and wonder,
His pen weaving wrong to right.
He drew his breath and squealed,
For the delight of a single ball.
And she holds her breath with fear,
As he sprouts wings above them all.
Two steps up he’d crawl,
Then rest, smile back for her.
No backwards glance now needed,
As he summits round every turn.
She counted piggies in the market,
And played peek-a-boo with his soles.
Now those feet march towards justice,
And she knows not where they go.
Her kisses, how they melted!
On his head and soft, pink cheeks.
But the need and count grow fewer,
As his face forms lines and peaks.
She was thankful for the baby boy,
God entrusted to her care.
And found it a privilege to love him,
To hold his hand and drive out fear.
But all the while she knew it coming,
Her great triumph and pending doom.
That this child would outgrow her,
And become a man too soon.
