today is your day

The clock has struck midnight, sweet one, and today is your day.
You are five years old and when you awake the celebration will begin. You've been waiting and counting down and now your day is here.
There will be cake and streamers. Garlands are already hung. There will be gifts and a scavenger hunt to find the biggest one that's hidden in the closet.
There will be chocolate-chip pancakes in the morning and change being dug out of mason jars to exchange for a giant cookie at Grove Street Bakery later this afternoon.
This will be a full day; you'll choose the special things you want to do and places you want to go because today is for you.
It's July 22, 2010 and today you are five years old.

It's hard to believe five years separates us from that first moment when you were placed in my arms. From that moment I heard your first cry and hot, happy tears rolled down my cheeks. From the moment I realized I was a mama and you were my babe. From the moments we shared alone in the middle of the night, alternating feeding you with dozing in and out of sleep.

From the moment when he became a daddy and I became a mama.

Your first years were filled with a thousand more of those moments. Moments I can see, times I've memorized. When it seemed as if the whole world stood still. 
Rocking you to sleep. Your first bright smiles and the sound of your laughter. The way you cooed at daddy when he came home from work. Your first steps on our cold kitchen floor at Leland Street. Your birthday parties. Your first day at preschool. Watching you learn to ride your bike, first with training wheels and then triumphantly without. Learning to love; becoming a big brother and loving your little William, your friends, your family, Jesus.

And now today, sweet one, you are five.

Five years has passed since that first moment I held you in my arms. You are a happy boy. You are curious about this great world around you. You ask questions. You love baseball. You finished your first season of t-ball; and now you love to catch and pitch and practice batting whenever you can. You love books and I am confident you will love to read. You are brave. Even when new things feel scary, you'll try and I admire that in you because there are times I'm afraid of new things too. You love water and swimming and you just learned how to swim underwater. It's your favorite accomplishment of the whole summer.

You love tractors and farms and fields and crops. You plan to take over Grandpa Tractor's farm at age seven. {that is coming right up.} You love daddy and the times you spend together. You love helping him work. You love playing catch together. You love dreaming up ideas for your landscaping business you plan to start. You love telling me all of the big plans the two of you made.

You love your cousin Gabe. You wish he lived closer because you would like to play together every day. You love the same things like Star Wars and superheroes and saying silly kinds of stuff that only you two say when you're together.

You love to help. You love to do somersaults across the living room floor. You are funny and you have a fun sense of humor. You get jokes and it is so much fun to be silly with you. You are kind. You show empathy to other people.Tonight you told me that even when you're a grown up you'll still stay with me. You sweet boy. You will not do that, you will always be welcome to, but trust me, you won't want to.

Tonight I read to you as is our tradition on your birthday eve. I like to tuck you in and cuddle with you and have the last moments with you before you are another year older. Tonight I lingered. I combed my fingers through your hair and I thought over these past five years. These years so filled with the joy of all that is you. Warm tears again welled up in my eyes. It's hard to believe that days that can seem so long on their own at times, have all piled up into weeks and months and years and formed into five years. I stayed until you drifted off to sleep and wished you the sweetest of dreams. Last night you were my four year old boy and you will wake this morning a five year old child.

Happy Birthday sweet boy. I love you Henry.