Today, my son turned six months old.
His half birthday.
I had such a hard time finding the words that I wanted to use to express how I am feeling. I want to do him justice. But these six months, man,
they’ve changed my entire life.
And without a doubt, this little (huge) guy has changed my life for the better
and for good.
I look back to the post I wrote for my daughter’s half birthday, three and a half years ago, and I am such a different person now. I am no longer a new mom. I don’t mark every milestone as fastidiously. I don’t plan princess parties to mark each month’s occasion.
But I love no less.
No less at all.
So in thinking, this is what I want to say about my son and his half birthday:
There’s this thing that I do with my daughter.
It’s like when I grab her hand from the driver’s seat in my car,
but even more powerful.
I hug her, hold her tight, breathe her in, and all of a sudden, the rest of the universe disappears.
I enter a new place.
This place is home to me. It is my place in this world, where I feel most at peace and most right.
When it comes to my son, the second child,
I feel as though I haven’t fallen prey to many of the common stereotypes. For instance, I still take a boat load of pictures of him, I still am tickled by each new thing he learns or does, I still honor his schedule,
but I realized, just yesterday, that I had yet to create a place in the world for just us.
I tested it.
It was in the middle of the day, right before we were set to pick up my daughter from school. And we weren’t busy playing on the floor or wrestling with a bottle. I was holding him and talking to him and all of a sudden, the urge to hold him close came over me.
And so I did.
And just like that,
home.
My place.
It is my place to be their mom.
These six months have been the hardest of my life, but not at all because of my son. His presence has brought me such joy.
He has blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair and smiles coyly, playing games already.
He sits with great facility, rolls all around, giggles at his sister, and on this past Easter Sunday, squealed with delight while eating smoked pork butt.
He is gentle. He is soft. He is sweet. He is round.
He is home.
And so while I may be in a new place, it is a place better than I could have ever imagined. I love my family in a way that I never thought possible.
And even though it’s been hard,
even though a lot of crap has happened,
I feel so blessed,
so lucky,
that I get to call them mine.