Dear Tradd and Jackson,
It's 6:00 am and I'm sitting in the quiet waiting for you to wake up...I couldn't sleep anymore. I have always loved the mornings with you. When you were brand new, I'd sit on the couch in the den feeding you, believing that I was the only person in the world awake...I remember waiting for the news to come on...AT 5:00 AM. Nowadays you sleep all night and sometimes I have to wake you up! It must be the way your hair styles itself during the night or your eyes, sleepy swollen, greet me with, "Hey, Mama!" that I just can't resist. Your Daddy and I race to your room when we hear your stirring just to be the first to see you. Earlier this week, we converted your cribs to the "toddler beds". I'm not really sure how this is going to work out because you get in and out a hundred times before settling in...I have found you in the same bed five times already.
In the past few months, I have witnessed you slowly becoming little boys. You love all things living. Birds, caterpillars, ants...although we have had to show you how to hold caterpillars without squishing them. You have also really started to love Max and Molly, our dogs. I'm not sure how they feel about this new found affection because you often try to ride them like horses. I should add that "Max and Mony", as you call them, are also sleeping quite soundly at night. The main reason I couldn't sleep last night is because Max was lost. Your Daddy let him out last night and he never came back. He drove and drove and walked and walked, but no Max. Part of me thought that perhaps Max had had enough and was off to find a new family. Maybe just a nice older couple who would never recognize his uncanny resemblance to a strapping equine that you so clearly see. I laid awake most of the night drafting the flyers to be posted and the friends and family we would call to aide in the search. At 5:00 this morning, we found Max on the back porch. I guess he likes to see you first thing in the morning, too.
Your favorite toys right now are "tars and trucks". I watch you manuver these tiny toys over and around and under every surface of this house and wonder who taught you to make the sounds that cars make. It takes you a good ten minutes to move from one room to another because you can't figure out how to carry five cars at one time....two in each hand and one held to your chest by your forearm is what seems to be working. You will undoubtedly drop one or two of them along the way...and your response, "Oh, dosh" and then you try again.
One thing that I have found in this journey of motherhood is that I pray all day long. When you are trying out a new word, I thank God that I am here to hear it. When I'm fishing a matchbox car out of the toilet, I'm so thankful that it's me that gets to go elbow deep in the big potty. When you have dumped all of your goldfish snack in the floor and are running through them in your tennis shoes to see just how small you can crush them, I close my eyes and pray for patience as I put you in time-out and fetch the broom. And you may not believe me, but all of that happened just yesterday before lunch.
love,
mama