My Boy

Yesterday I wrote about how thankful I am for daughters. Today it only seemed right to talk about my son.

I am only just getting to know this boy. We've been aware of each other for a year now, but we only met four months ago. I can't talk about him as intimately as I can talk about the girls, because he is still developing a personality on still the most basic level.

Yet I can say that the little boy he already is, the little man that I'm getting to know, is a pure delight.

Our boy is always smiling. He laughs at everything. He is almost always content and rarely cries. He is gorgeous and sweet and kissable and happy and chubby. He makes other people smile with his own ever-present smile. He laughs when you croon at him and beep his nose and tickle his feet and brush your hair across his cheek. He puts the stars in my eyes.

He is all perfect baby, exactly what a baby should be. He's a dreamboat; he's a parent's dream come true.

In the mornings, he sleeps in late, then lies awake, quietly content, while I get ready. He rarely interrupts my morning routine; he just waits patiently for me, even for long periods of time when I'm not even in the room with him. He sleeps deeply and often. He feeds efficiently and doesn't protest if I need to put him down to run after one of his big sisters. After all, he thinks his big sisters have hung the moon and rewards their mother-child efforts with enormous grins and coos.

I know he'll be a big boy soon, with words and tantrums and, heaven forbid, spiders and worms in his pockets, and maybe toy guns or maybe doll's prams. He will become more of who he is to become, and while if I could choose right at this moment, I'd keep him a baby forever, I also can't wait to see what having a boy is really all about. I am so, so thankful I have been given a son, and I hope I will be able to guide him as his mother to be a gentle man, while his daddy teaches him how to be a strong one. He will maybe one day be someone's husband, and I won't begrudge another woman taking my boy away, as long as she is a good woman.

But for now, give me all the cuddles and coos and baby puke and breastfeeds and kicky legs and fat rolls and sleepy sighs and sharp teeth and biteable toes that I can possibly get from him, because he is my baby son, and I am so thankful for him.