Runaway October

Today the big D-Meister turns 3. As a mat­ter of fact it wlll be exactly 3 years to the minute as I write this post. Man, how things have changed since his birth.

It’s been a long haul so far. So much to learn, so much to change, so much to cel­e­brate. Before I had chil­dren I would always tell Matt that I wanted 17 kids. I would think of my mother and how she had 6 kids and thought I could do that too, no prob­lem. Now that I have two lit­tle boys my want for 17 kids has dropped a lit­tle to a more man­age­able num­ber. I still think of my mother and how things make more sense, yet I don’t know how she managed.

While child­less it never occurred to me just how much work it took to do your best. How often you fall short of ideal. How self­less you have to become. In all hon­esty, it has been hard. When I crack my eye­lids in the morn­ing, before the sun, because Rowan is gig­gling and try­ing to stuff Legos in my ears I long for the days that I could sleep until 2 o’clock in the after­noon. After spend­ing a full day clean­ing, cook­ing three meals and nurs­ing non-stop all I want is a long hot bath, by myself. But Declan doesn’t like the water too hot and Rowan can’t stay in too long or he gets too prune-y.

But there are so many price­less moments that I would never want to miss. The feel­ing of pure eupho­ria when your baby finally comes home from the NICU. The first steps. The first time you hear Mama. When he runs past other peo­ple cry­ing because he wants com­fort from you. The lit­tle feel­ing of dread­ful but­ter­flies when he does some­thing so amaz­ingly grown up and the thought of how big he’s really get­ting. Being awestruck by how large his men­tal capac­i­ties have become in 3 short years.

There is so much grow­ing that goes on with chil­dren about, not their growth but mine as well (and not just the size of my butt). My heart has truly grown.

Happy Birth­day Declan Pierce. I love you so much, baby. (This is where he would say “I’m not baby. Declan is big boy. Rowan is lit­tle baby!”  )