3.31.2008

Love Letter - Month Twenty-fiveish

Dear Tradd and Jackson,
YOU ARE TWO!!! We made it...in some ways it literally seems like yesterday that I was snuggling two tiny babies and in some ways it seems like you've always been a part of "us". I've been working on a special gift for you over the past few weeks that required that I look back through all of the pictures that we have taken of you. In one picture from the day you were born I saw myself, a new mother bright-eyed and smiling, kissing one of you for the first time...if I close my eyes I am right back there. Surrounded by a dozen people buzzing about your weight, your length and how much you look like your Daddy...things were happening all around me, happy things, but my mind was silent. I remember closing my eyes and whispering "I love you" to that perfect child that I was holding..."instant love" is how it was described to me when I was pregnant. And it was.

But two years later when looking at that picture all that I could see was how I didn't even know you. I didn't know your voices, that are now so different to me that I know who is calling me without even looking. I didn't know your smells, fresh from a bath or having played outside in the dirt. I didn't know the way that Tradd would cut his eyes at me and grin, or the way Jackson would need me so desperately at bedtime. In that picture I see myself whispering "I love you", not knowing where or how to start, because loving someone is just that...something that you do. I look at that picture and realize how little I loved you. Since then this love between us has multiplied time and again...I can't wait to see how big this love will be.



You have become such little boys over the past few months. Making noises when you play with cars and going crazy in the car when we pass a "big truck". Playing outside in the dirt and picking up sticks to poke the ground...just what little boys do. You know all of your shapes and colors and letters (except V and X, but don't worry those two don't get used a lot anyhow. You will sit for hours if I just keep "weeding" stories. You have favorite books and favorite toys. Jackson, you will eat anything...Tradd, not so much. You have learned the word "mine" and we are trying to replace it with "ours". And that's another thing, you are not just "mine"...I share you with so many people that love you. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends...all loving you and helping to raise "our" boys. I guess it's true that you have always been a part of "us", even before you were here. We dreamed of you and prayed for you, and two years later we are loving you. How lucky.

Love,
Mama