happy birthday, my beautiful son!

How on earth could I have ever imagined the world without you in it? -What a desolate, quiet, lonely place it must have been before you busted up the calm with your wails, your giggles, & your endless chatter. I feel so lucky to be your mother, & also so terribly out of my league. Your glittering, shiny perfection casts a garish light on my many flaws. I want to be the best for you. I am getting better. You are making me perfect like you.

There are so many things I would like to tell you on this day, but my heart is so filled up with such enormous joy I am having a hard time making sense of it all. Happy 1st birthday, beautiful boy. I suspect you may never know what happiness you bring to me, and also what anguish --anguish because I cannot protect you from all the harm the world may do to you, sorrow because one day you won't permit me to hold you & comfort you as you do today, sweet sadness that there is not a thing I can do to hold on to these memories as they slide away & fade fast.

I have never loved anyone as I love you.

I love the fact that you still know only one word, Mama, & that you repeat it all day long like a mantra you are chanting. You so desperately want to be talking. I will be a tiny bit sad when you learn more words & my name wanes in significance, replaced by boat & duck & dog.

I love the way you poke at my nipples with your fingertips & laugh when I say "milk." This nursing relationship has been for me the greatest challenge & the purest joy. I both love & loathe the crazy intimacy it yields but I would not have it any other way. I have danced along the limits of my patience while you trespass all my boundaries day and night.

I love the way you hoover up all the blueberries on your tray first thing. And when they are all gone you sit & wait for more for a few quiet moments before you give up & finally, reluctantly, tuck in to the sweet potatoes, green beans & beets. If I would permit it, you would eat blueberries for every meal.

I love your fierce right-handedness -the way your left hand hovers uselessly in the air while you palm a ball, or figure a puzzle, or push a truck across the living room floor.

I love the way you clap your hands for everything: hooray for milkie! -hooray for a clean diaper! -hooray for papa coming home! (or when you heard me reading this aloud just now!)

I love your kisses, open-mouthed & soggy & a little cross-eyed (focus, aim) & always on cue.

I love how you will get some random tool clutched tight in your grasp (a pen or spoon, the glockenspiel mallet, your wooden knife) & then carry it around with you pointlessly as you crawl from room to room, as if you might need it eventually.

I love the way you toss & turn & kick & spin in your sleep. I love the sound of your little head whacking the wall as you worm your way up into the corner of the bed where the two walls meet. You toss your head from side to side (Whack! -Whump!), whimpering occasionally, but mostly sleeping through the violence. It always makes us giggle.

I love how obviously fascinating the mechanics of everything is to you, - the way you will open & close a book, or a cabinet, or the dishwasher, over & over, staring into the gears, trying to make sense of it all.

I love how when we ask you "how old you are?" you immediately reach your hands up & look to the sky. It doesn't make any sense, but it is perfectly awesome anyhow.

I love the way you point at all the pictures in a book, as if to ask "what's this?" But you never wait long enough for the answer. You are too busy pointing & pointing & pointing.

I love your smile: the sweet, sly curve of your lips when I look down & catch you watching me, the dazzled, glowing eager smile when I strike a match, the big, goobery, cackling smile when something (anything?!) strikes you as funny, the flirtatious, squinty-eyed, charming smile that you've only lately discovered. So long as you keep smiling, I suspect I will always be happy.

I love how much pure & unadulterated joy you get from a boring old game of peekaboo. Your capacity for elation shames me. I am less of a cynic since I met you.

I love the way your entire body quivers with excitement when you realize we are about to go outside.

I love the way you hold our hands & lead us around as we help you learn to walk. You march back & forth across the living room floor, ducking into bedrooms, turning on a dime willy-nilly. You are our master & we obey your every command.

I love the way you giggle uncontrollably when I stop to disentangle our gripping fingers & ask, "do you wanna take some steps by yourself?" You have a strange, giddy anxiety about letting go of my hand & walking off alone (into the sunset, without me). It's like you realize what it means for you to be able to walk away & it makes you feel both mirthful & mournful & a little weird. I want you to know it makes me feel the exact same way.

Happy 1st Birthday, sweet baby X!