twelve months//dear maddox

Dear Maddox,

Happy, happy birthday, my sweet baby love. Today you are one. Today you have lived on this earth for three hundred and sixty five perfect days, each day more precious than the last. Each day has been a gift as you are my gift. You have brought so much light into my life. Each smile, each kiss, each time you point to me and call me mama, my heart bursts with happiness and I don't know how it can get any better. But then you do it again and it does. It's always getting better. Even when this moment feels like the best moment, I know that there will be millions of best moments with you. And sometimes late at night when I can't sleep because I'm thinking of you, I will try to line up all of the best moments and pick a favorite and it is impossible because each moment is better than the last in some impossible and indescribable way.

Sweet boy, with darkness there is light. And if I think back to the months before you, I remember the fears and insecurities that plagued my soul. But you brought redemption to my life. The moment your daddy carried you to me, swaddled and with a red knitted hat perched on the top of your misshapen head, I fell in love with you. My heart enveloped every single fear I had harbored deep within myself for the past nine months and there you were and you were perfect and suddenly everything was in its right place.



Time has swept us away and carried us to the now. Now you are one-year-old and now you are crawling and walking around furniture. Now you are no longer an infant but now you are independent and stubborn, strong-willed and decided. Each moment is a first and a last and each moment I want to hold on to forever. I'm always looking for forever in everything because I want every moment to last for all of eternity. I wished for forever in the newborn days when you loved sleeping skin-to-skin and cried when I wasn't holding you. I wanted forever as you learned to laugh and laughed for the first real time on our third wedding anniversary. I wanted forever every single night that you fell asleep on my shoulder and I fought with myself on how long I would hold you before putting you to bed.

You are on the verge of everything. Your entire life lays before you now. Time will continue sweeping us into the future and together we will walk towards it side by side. I will always have your back, your hand, your heart. I feel the ache of time in my entire body as I write this letter to you tonight, knowing that this moment is a first and also a last and that tomorrow will come and then it will go and you will turn another day older and people will stop us to ask how old you are and I will decidedly announce that you are one-year-old. The days turned into weeks, into months and now into years. Years, baby.

You are everything in the world to me. You are a thousand points of light in the darkest of days. You are my home. Your tiny body was once so new to me. I was gentle with you as I pinned your legs in my hand and lifted them off the changing table to change your diaper. I was afraid that I would break you in your fragile newborn state. I carried you tight against me everywhere I went because I had never been so afraid of dropping something than I was with you. And now you are home. The solid weight of your body as it sits on my hip as we go about our days. The smell of your breath. Your fingers curled around mine as we practice your walking. The weight of your body as you lay next to me in the dusty light of each new morning. You are home.

You came into this world kicking and screaming, stubborn and refusing all measures of medicine to be born into this world. The doctors cut me open to pull you out and with their hands came your first breath and then your first cry. I heard the doctors announce that your were a boy and then I heard your daddy whisper into my ears as I concentrated on catching my breath, "That's our son. That's Maddox." I could not have imagined that moment, the moment you made me a mother. I could not have drawn it out in my mind the way that I decorated your nursery or planned your first birthday party. I could not have imagined any of these moments but perhaps that's a blessing because they arrive and I am so utterly blown away that I catch my breath a hundred times a day in awe and wonder at you, sweet boy.

Motherhood is nothing like I imagined it to be. Perhaps that is because I could have never fathomed the joy that is being your mama. You are constantly learning, taking everything in and trying everything out. Everything is yours and each new discovery takes you a little bit further away from me. You're becoming independent as you pull the spoon from my hand and dip it into your mashed potatoes and bring it to your mouth. Of course you miss but you try again and although most of your dinner is spread across your face and down your shirt, you have managed to feed yourself and you clap with joy at your accomplishments. Soon you will no longer need me to prepare your meals or nurse you before bed. You'll be potty trained and walking, tucking yourself into bed at night. Time will continue to carry you to adulthood while I sit on the sidelines and marvel at each new accomplishment. Motherhood has been an exercise in letting go and even though you'll always be my baby, you are turning into a little boy and I could not be more proud or be filled with more joy to be a part of your story.

I will forever be turned inside out. Because you are my son.

I love you, I love you, I love you.
Mama