Three

My little boy is now a big three year old.  When he was a tiny little baby, everyone told me time would suddenly fly by now that we had a child.  No one told me all I had to do was blink and he'd be three though.  A couple days before his birthday, our sweet boy had run in our room as he does every morning to wake us up.  He was especially excited this particular morning, and once he was sure we were awake, he took off like a rocket to get a particular toy to show us.  He was his wild, energetic self, and it was barely past 6:00 a.m.  This was just another typical morning in our household.  I rolled over and said to Karl, "Three years ago, did you ever imagine this is what our life would look like now?"  Of course he didn't, and neither did I.  We had no idea what was in store for us when in just a few days our first son would be born.

Just as people warned us that time would go by way too quickly, they told us we would love him more than we had ever loved anything.  They told us he would be our whole world, what made our world go round.  They told us it would be the hardest adventure of our lives.  They told us we would never be the same once he was placed in our arms.  We were warned, lectured, and advised over and over, but we had no idea how true all those pearls of wisdom would be.

And then our boy was born.

Some things you learn instantly and effortlessly.  We both immediately fell so head over heels in love that we felt like our hearts couldn't possibly handle such emotion.  In the second that he took his first breath, we were parents, responsible for this beautiful, delicate creation.  It felt divine.

But some things took more experience to learn.  By the time he was six months old, we had learned that yes, indeed this was the hardest, most demanding, confusing, frustrating job in the whole world.  We had learned that babies don't have memories because God is merciful and lets the multitude of mistakes you make in the beginning slip right on by your little one because some moments and days are just better not remembered.

We learned, grew, and changed by the day.  All three of us.  And three years later I wish that I could freeze time.  I now know how fast it does go by and that who this boy is today is not who he'll be next year or even next month.  I love who he was in each of his little stages these past three years, and I know I'll love who he becomes even more than I love who he is right now, as hard as that is for me to imagine.

This little boy is the very heart of me.  At night when I tuck him in and tell him that he's my best little buddy, I mean it with all that I am.  I'll mean it every day for the rest of my life, just as when I say, "I love you more," it's my heart's promise to him.  He is my best buddy, my heart, my whole world.  What a blessed mother I am to be able to say he is my son.