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
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