More Sunshine

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

It's unbelievable really, watching a little person develop in front of your very eyes.  Progress is made each and every day.  Sometimes it is ever so slight and other days it seems to be happening in leaps and bounds.  Growing up is first measured in pounds and inches, then in milestones like rolling over and crawling.  Pretty soon it takes the form of emotional and verbal developments. Grunts turn into words and frustrations lead to tears.  Curiosity leads to bruises and success results in squeals of the most uninhibited joy known to man...or at least known to moms.

We are coming up on two years.  Two years of milestones, two years of tears, two years of grunts and words and bumps and bruises.  Two years of giggles and squeals.  Two years of shrieks and kicking and screaming.  Two years of hugs and kisses and more love than ever imaginable.  

You  make me happy when skies are gray

Our Little Monkey hates having his hair touched.  Hair washing, hair brushing, hair cutting leads to a face streaked with tears and screams so loud that a person on the street would wonder what the heck is going on in there.  He gets marshmallows for going potty on the big potty.  Fruit snacks may be the best  thing ever created in a lab somewhere.  Meals are hit and miss.  I'm convinced Chef Boyardee has never done a load of laundry.  Trains are delightful.  Tractors, trucks and anything big he can sit in bring smiles and endless requests to "sit on on".  

You'll never know Dear, how much I love you

He is starting to understand reason now.  But with the ability to reason comes the ability to manipulate. Calling for Dadda long enough may just get him back into the room.  Throwing fits sometimes works to his advantage.  But sometimes it just leaves him on the floor in a puddle of his own tears and once he realizes that, he usually moves on.  Two can play that game Little Monkey.

I used to think that it couldn't be that difficult to teach your child how to pick up after themselves, how to behave in a restaurant, how to stand still while Momma pays the lovely cashier.  I used to think, How hard can it be?  Of course this was all before I had one.  Too many times it is just easier to pick it up for him and to leave plates behind with fries left.  I keep telling myself there is plenty of time to really instill manners and patience.  But, he put his own shorts on the other day.  We've known he can take them off for awhile now, another one of his tricks to get us back into the room when he doesn't want to go to bed.  But, putting them on? Only big boys do that....certainly he can't be a big boy yet.  Can he?

Please don't take my sunshine away

Falling asleep in my arms happens so rarely anymore.  We rock and we read and we sing.  Then he points to the bed and leans in for his kiss.  I place him in his crib and tuck him in, Snug as a Bug in a Rug.  But on those rare occasions that he is sleepy enough to drift off and my lullaby fades to background music, I still look at him and my eyes well up with tears.  I cannot even believe that this little miracle has given my life more meaning in two years than nearly the 35 that I've lived.  My heart swells with pride and with love.  And before I can carefully lift him, with his eyes closed and his breathing relaxed, there comes the softest whisper, more sunshine.

Ok my Little Love, Momma will sing more sunshine.

You are my sunshine my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You'll never know Dear, how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away

Keeping Up...

I'm finding it much harder to keep this blog updated, for a couple of reasons.  I don't have much spare time at the end of the day.  When I do, I enjoy spending it with my husband.  But the real reason for not visiting here more often...I just don't know how to put into words what we experience in a day, a week or a month.

Each new word means more than its definition.  Truck. Ball. Owl.  They mean comprehension and language development.  They mean recognition of objects and pictures.  They mean he is growing up. And words are coming fast and furious these day.  And that means so is his 2nd birthday, and his 3rd, and his 10th...

We have ourselves a little Daddy's boy.  And while I admit that it breaks my heart just a little to know that right now he prefers Daddy over me, there can be nothing more comforting than knowing I have the best husband and man at my side.  It means I picked correctly.  It means the man I married is strong enough to be our protecter and soft enough fix boo boos.  That being a man means being a Daddy.  And that even a child can recognize that.  It means Aiden will grow up knowing how to do it right; being a husband and a father.

It's hard to summarize the six months that have taken place since my last update.  There have been lots and lots of colds, ear infections and respiratory junk this winter.  People tell you lots of things when you are expecting.  Things like "they grow so fast!"  and "you won't believe how much you'll love them".  But there are so many things I feel like no one told me.  Like how stressed out I'll be when they are sick.  How all the aches and pains he experiences are 10 fold for me.  Like how I'd do anything to just keep him safe and healthy.  I feel like I wear my heart on my sleeve now.  Like it is just out there and unprotected.  For a girl who likes schedules and checklists, unpredictability makes me anxious.  No one told me to expect the unexpected...

Oh but all the worry pales in comparison to the joy Aiden brings us. To the laughter.  To the fun.  To the pride. To the stories.  To the snuggles.   To the LOVE.   This little monkey of ours is the most amazing little person.  I've had six months to think about what to say and I still don't know.  How do I put into words all that he has given us?  We now have a house where books lay all over the floor. Pots and pans are littered across the kitchen.  Dried spaghetti is stuck to the table.  Finger prints and tongue prints cover the windows.  He has given me more to clean and more to keep up with.  But more importantly, he has given me my identity.  He has given me my reason to live.  If it is possible to fall even more in love with my husband, he has given me that too.

And since I have a hard time telling you what we've been up to, I'll just give you a little glimpse instead.

Life is pretty darn cool.