It's a ONEderful Life

Getting back to normal after the summer always proves difficult. It seems like in the summer months we settle into this laziness where every day may as well be a Saturday and our sense of urgency is nowhere to be found.  What’s for dinner? Who knows.  What are we doing today? No plans, really.  Didn’t get the to-do list done? Who cares-we’ll try tomorrow.  And so when it was time to get back to business with work and school it is all we can do to get our acts together and be up and ready to go on time and without coming apart at the seams.  On top of that my work schedule has changed and I am in early (and out early), leaving Sean to get the kids ready for the day. Throw in a first birthday party and you’d think it would be a recipe for a chaotic, epic disaster- at the very least a mama meltdown, right?  Normally, yes.  

However three weeks ago (I’m late-I get it-I told you we are trying to get our acts together!), for a lady that is usually her worst self right before a party, I was a pretty cool customer. There was no crying, and yelling (well except when my darling husband decided to weed-whack the overgrown garden thirty minutes before the party was starting.... listen, everyone has limits) and everything was ready to go before the first guests arrived.  Carter’s First Birthday Party had arrived and the fact of the matter is the whole world could have been crashing down around me and I don’t think I would have cared.  I was celebrating my sweet rainbow baby’s first birthday; my very own Harry Potter-the boy that lived.  There was nothing that could take away from the happiness that it was bringing me.

I had spent the weeks leading up to it planning all the little details-the ones I’m constantly reminded that the kids wouldn’t notice anyway. I think my hope is when they grown up and sift through the artifacts of our past they will see how much love I put into their celebrations.  That to me, their birthdays were so much more than cake and paper plates; that it was a day for me to try and reciprocate the joy they brought to me and their dad every other day of the year.  And so I glued sticks to frames, and moss to letters and all of the other little things that would turn the backyard into a little woodland party.  

And because I have some of the best family and most talented people to call my friends my big guy had delicious treats, a gorgeous cake and some of the cutest little cookies you ever did see.  

So many of the people that have followed along with Sean and I over the last year, sharing in the joy of becoming parents again after so much heartache; many of the people that have loved watching this baby boy grow over the last year and change our world for the better came to celebrate this happy day with us.  That was the part that meant everything.  These were the same people that stood by us in the darkness and have been there waiting patiently when we found the light again.  

Watching Carter follow around his big friends, and point to all of the things that blow his little mind, seeing him push his cake around but not into trying it, sitting with him and my grandma as she sang the same song to him she has sung to all of her grand and great-grandchildren: these were all of the moments I had felt so robbed of these last three and a half years; the secondary losses.  And so though I tried my damnedest to make this only about Carter, his big brother was never far from my mind, with my heart wishing I had gotten those moments with Jack too.  

There was one point where my sister was taking a photo of us, that this boy touched my face and looked at me square in the eye and all I could think was, ‘thank you.’  I don’t know who it was directed to, Carter- for being everything I needed so badly, Jack- for picking this little guy out for us, Sean-for giving us this beautiful life and hanging on unwaveringly while we made it through the worst of it, or maybe even the universe.  In any case, my heart was full of gratitude and love. 

My life will never feel perfect again, the naivety of that notion died with my first son, but there is a sense of peace in my heart again that has been missing for a long time; and it’s a pretty wonderful feeling. And I’ll take that any day of the year and twice on the day of a party.  

Happy Birthday, Baby Boy

To my sweet baby- the littlest Doyle boy,

I really can’t begin to wrap my head around how we got here.  How is it that I just put you to sleep on the last night before your first birthday?  How did it all go so fast?  

It really seems to my heart that you were just getting here; that I was sitting around, quite literally holding my breath waiting to see you; to hear your cries and see you breathing. I can remember all of those months leading up to that moment-and with each passing one I was desperately trying not to get too attached to you, afraid our eyes would never meet.  And yet the moment I heard your first loud cry I knew what I’d known all along, I was already wrapped around your chubby little fingers and there was no turning back.  

From those first minutes you were this big, sweet boy.  Your chubby cheeks made it impossible not to fall in love with you and those big round eyes made it impossible to look away.  Even now, those eyes seem to be taking every single thing in, like you know there is too many amazing things around you to miss.

With you, you brought so much of what had been missing from our home for far too long.  You have filled our lives with laughter- and its obvious you love to make your adoring fans laugh, smiles- real honest-to-God smiles, the kind that reach your eyes and bring color to your cheeks, the kind I have been so desperate to see in photos again.  You gave your sister a partner in crime; someone to love, and snuggle, and chase.  You gave your dad a little buddy to make him feel funny and growl with. 

You brought me back to life, my sweet boy.  I know that is a lot of responsibility to put on such tiny shoulders but it is the truth. I am really living again.  When your brother left us I felt so robbed, so cheated, and so angry.  It’s like I was sent a boy that could melt some of that ache away from my heart and soften some of those hard edges again.  You brought the light back into my world. 

Our vacation this last week with you was a bit hectic, chasing you around and holding our breaths as you narrowly missed coffee table edges, waking up before sunrise because you like your crib at home better, but you made every moment of it sweeter too. You are so very loved; it makes me feel like my heart could burst at its seams.

I will celebrate your year here with us the only way I know how: big, full of faces that love you, and all the mama tears I have in my tank.  I will cry: because I am so sad I can not keep you small, because I am relieved to have made it to a year with a healthy, happy boy that is growing (and walking, and cutting three teeth in a ten-day-span!!), and because I didn’t think I would ever really celebrate a first birthday again.    

You have a fever tonight. I will wake up and check on you no less that six times.  I will tell myself it will be to make sure you are all right, that your fever doesn’t come back.  But my heart knows the truth-I want to take in every moment of you I can before you turn One.  Because I know how fast this will go; I know that in the blink of an eye, you too will be six.  But to me, you will forever be my little chooch, my sweet baby boy. 

I love you, Carter Fitzgerald, more than I will probably ever be able to put into words.

Happy Birthday.  

Love, 

Mama