Reading my Mind...

A little over a week ago Julie from A Little Pregnant wrote the following paragraph on her blog:

It's hard to know what to write these days. I don't write much about Charlie. In fact, I'm finding it hard even to write about why I don't write about Charlie. The responsible claim to make is that I respect his privacy and am trying to be careful about sharing his life with the world at large. But that's not it, not really. It's almost entirely out of stupefaction: I don't know how. I don't have words....... — see that I find him utterly captivating. See the problem? Watching a three-year-old dance at a wedding is a relatively common experience, not worthy of hyperbole to anyone but his family. But for his awestruck mother, whom words otherwise seldom fail, "captivating" doesn't cover it.

As I read that paragraph I felt like she must have been inside my head for the last couple of months, following me around and writing down how I have been feeling. Today my baby turns 16 months old. When he was first born I didn't put up pictures of him because my dad had asked me not to, he was afraid some weirdo would come and steal him. I respected that and I tried very hard not to keep images up for too long.


Then after awhile even without the pictures I stopped putting up the stories. It wasn't because I didn't want to share him with you. Quite the opposite actually. I have been quite afraid that if I write how I really feel about him on a daily basis it would make you all vomit a little into your mouths. And we just don't need that do we??

Also, I have some readers who do not have children, who are still trying to have children, or who are over the children phase and don't really want to come to just another mommy blog. So since I also don't want to isolate them I have kept Zack to a somewhat minimum.

However, in honor of yesterday being mother's day and him turning 16 months today, excuse me while I wipe away a tear, I am making an exception. On my last post someone mentioned the feeling of being a mother and whether it was comparable to any other feeling I've ever had and I must say, 100% absolutely not.

Really, there are no words to express to you how amazing I find this child. I am absolutely in awe of everything he does. Even now, as I'm trying to write I'm looking at what pictures to put up and I just stop and stare. This child... I created this child....

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There is not a day that goes by that I don't try to stop him from growing up so fast. I have never been one of those mom's that couldn't wait for the next milestone. I can wait... really I can... because once he gets there he will be less of my baby and more of a big boy.
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On Friday night when we got done with our meeting we went to pick Zack up from my mom & dad's house. He woke up in the car and so when we got up stairs rather than just put him back to bed I sat down in the chair with him and rocked him. There are so many days that he will just fight me on this wanting to get down and play but not Friday night. Friday night he just laid his head on my shoulder and let me rock him back to sleep. I couldn't have asked for anything more on this mother's day weekend than that.
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Every day he finds something new and different in life and I feel SOO blessed to be able to witness that. I get such joy out of being able to be there for his firsts. The first time he walked, the first time he saw snow,

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felt grass on his bare feet, all of those things I get to be there to see and it is the most amazing feeling I could ever imagine.
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I am, in fact, one of those parents who are not bothered in the slightest when their child cries. I don't like for him to be upset, but on Sunday as we were wrestling him out of the dog kennel and he was screaming bloody murder I was excited to see the person he had become. My heart was filled with pride that he felt comfortable enough with us to express himself and know that he was safe with us. It has been amazing to me to see him develop opinions and ideas of his own about how things should work and what he wants to do with his time.
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Every day I drop him off at daycare and we have conversations about things he sees. Most of which I can't understand but I do catch a few. Like car and go (when I am stopped at a stop light.). And every day I get off of work and can't wait to get to daycare and pick him up to hear what new words he has learned and what new tricks he has picked up.
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Last weekend as I watched him play with bubbles
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And dance at his very first wedding
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All I could think was how I just wanted to keep him this small for ever. I kept wanting to pick him up and squeeze him and he kept pushing me away because he had places too go and people to see.

This feeling is unlike anything I have EVER felt before. I am utterly amazed at every little thing that he does and I couldn't love anything more!!

(Sorry it's sideways... I thought I had it flipped but blogger doesn't like it...)