Happy Birthday To You!

Posted by Mandy on June 15th, 2008 filed in Uncategorized

Today Jack is one year old. Last year at this time, I was coming out of the OR and feeling a little surreal about having a healthy and HOWLING little boy. We would find out later that the nurses knew who he was by his voice alone, since they could hear him outside of the maternity ward. When he was born, I learned two important things: the surgeon thought my insides were “very pretty”, and Jack was officially a “big boy”.

This year, we have learned just how much one little man can change our lives. We have watched his sense of humor come forward more and more, and his vocabulary (spoken and signed) develop: He has started saying “Mama” and “Dada” (and maybe “cat” and “up”). Jack loves animals of all kinds, can eat as much as an adult at any meal and still wake up hungry at 3 a.m. every morning, and try to snap his fingers when we snap in time to songs. He loves funk music and will bob up and down to it, and will try and mimic Seamus the Cat’s squeaky meow by squeaking in a high-pitched voice. He wrinkles and scrunches his nose when he smiles if he is doing something he thinks is dangerous and fun, or if he’s doing something he thinks is going to be funny or exciting for us.

But what really gets me is how loving he is. He will crawl–now walk–right up to us and put his arms around our necks and his head on our shoulders and settle in for a long hug. Sometimes a kiss (with or without biting). He’ll rest his head on our legs while we pat him on the back, and if we’re lying on the floor, he’ll come and lie on top of us and give us kisses and head-butts.

This year has been hard, since we moved to a new place so soon after his birth. I think Ben says it best, though, when he says that Jack fills a hole he never even knew he had. It’s been hard a hard year, but also one that we would never change for the world. Thank you, Jack, for being with us this year–we love you more than anything.