My Boy's First Birthday

My boy turned one this week.  I won't lie -- it completely broke my heart.  Henry is my "baby".  I will never again in my entire life be able to say that I am the mother to a [insert number between 1 and 11] month old.  Whit has made it perfectly clear that we are DONE with making babies.  Poor Henry must bear the burden of being the *baby* for the rest of his life.  Bless his heart.

In thinking about my son's first year and how to describe how our lives have changed since his entrance into this world, I realized just how hard it is to express the depth of my love for that child using mere words.  Before I was a mother, I had no idea it was possible to love someone so fully and completely and unconditionally.  Then I had Goose.  And that changed.  I honestly believed I would NEVER love another child as much as I do Goose -- even right up to the moment when I delivered Henry.  I just consoled myself by telling myself (quietly so no one would think I am totally crazy) that Henry would simply never know that I didn't love him as much as I love his older sister.
 Then Henry was actually here.  In my arms.  Looking at me with those deep brown eyes.  And I realized then that what every mother of more than one child told me was really true.  It is totally possible to love more than one child exactly the same.  I can't explain it. I can only say that it is the most powerful love I have ever felt.  

I realized in an instant that Henry is worth all of the heartache we endured while trying to have our "second child" (that I secretly thought I wouldn't love as much.)  Every single negative pregnancy test I cried over in the course of two years; the time, emotion and money invested with our fertility specialist; the agonizing months of morning sickness; the unconscionable weight gain that I am still struggling to lose; the pain associated with trying to deliver a 9 lb 8 oz bouncing baby boy; and the 10 months of sleepless nights after his birth -- all of these things have magically disappeared.

I would do it all again, a thousand times, to just have one minute with my boy against my chest, his little hands curled around my fingers. To breathe in his scent and watch his eyelids flutter as he dreams the dreams of childhood. To feel the rise and fall of his back with each breath he takes. One of my favorite bloggers (Ree Drummond) posted a quote once that rings so true for me:   "Your girls are yours forever. But you will cherish that boy."

And I do. I cherish him.

So Happy Birthday to my darling son.  I love you more than I ever thought possible.