My Baby is No Longer a Baby

So it's lil' Rylan's b-day today. He's 4 BIG years old. He and I went shopping for cupcakes for his class and cake mix for his special cake this evening. He has been my closest friend the last almost-5 years. We do everything together and I love it. Not that I didn't ever want my other boys, but Rylan came to us when I needed him to fill my emptiness. After the miscarriage, I wanted nothing more than to be pregnant and 5 months later, he was an answer to prayer. He still fills my emptiness...like when it's too quiet in the house, you can count on him to sing a cute song (opera style is his genre at this moment) or make noise. When I want to nap and be lazy, he requires me to get up from my sloth-like state to fulfill his basic needs of food and butt wiping. He gives me kisses, says that he loves me, and tells me that I am beautiful when Jerrod's not there to do his husbandly job.

As every parent knows, each child has their own personality. It is amazing to see the differences of all three of my boys and know that they are still from the same gene pool. Aside from just how much they look like each other, they are soo very different. What a challenge that God has put in our hands to raise these children into God-fearing, life-embracing, respectful men. There is no greater honor than to be a mother to these boys and to wake up each morning knowing that they have great respect for our job as parents. Jerrod and I see it in the way they respond to discipline: one of the many forms that our love comes in...and they get that.

We are far from perfect parents. We were never called to be "perfect". Our boys are not "perfect" and that is what makes them so perfect in my eyes. They are perfectly loved and they love me perfectly.

Boy do I get emotional on birthdays.