YOUR SECOND TRIP AROUND THE SUN | A LETTER TO HUDSON ON YOUR BIRTHDAY

Dear Hudson,

Two years ago 3:08 p.m. on April 29, 2015 you came into our lives like a bat out of hell. Literally. You spent the first 12 hours of your life screaming at the top of your lungs. Red faced and clearly bothered by something, no one could get you to stop crying. Much like your mom, you had already developed your own certain brand of attitude. The first few hours the nurses kept assuring us you’d eventually calm down, but by the time 10 o’clock rolled around and the night nurse was using a sponge bath as last ditch effort, even she began to get a weary look on her face when it didn’t work. I was tired, frustrated, and quite frankly, a little nervous. But a few hours later it was like a flip switched and finally around 2 a.m. you snuggled up against me, stopped crying, and quietly went to bed on my chest. In that moment you wriggled yourself right into a part of my heart I didn’t know existed before that day.

These days it feels like not much has changed. I am tired. So tired. You literally NEVER. STOP. MOVING. At times I am frustrated. Can I just once go to the bathroom by myself for sixty seconds without fear that you will have somehow gotten into my makeup and there will be hot pink lipstick all over the couch when I emerge? And I am nervous. Nervous because watching you walk – make that run – around this world is like watching my heart run around outside of my body. At two years old I am nervous every day that you will hurt yourself somehow physically. I flinch when you crash into things because you are somehow always looking backwards instead of where you are going or when you decide it is a good idea to make a flying leap off of a chair right in the direction of our concrete fireplace.And I know one day I’ll be nervous that you’ll be hurt in different ways, and try as I might I will not be able to take the pain away from you as my own. And yet I also know it’s not my job to run behind you to save you from every bump and bruise because it’s all part of watching you grow and learn. And I know one day it won’t be my job to make the pain go away, but to teach you how to deal and cope in healthy ways with disappointments and heartbreak until it subsides and passes. So yeah, I’m nervous. But, Hudson, I am also proud, and grateful, and so very full of love for you that it makes the rest of it more than worth it.

And then there are also some days it feels like everything has changed. I look at you and I no longer see that little baby that snuggled up against me in the middle of the night two years ago. I now see a little boy. A boy who is inquisitive and interested in how things work. A boy who loves to be outside and explore. You once delivered a dead frog to me from our backyard and instead of freaking out I had to laugh because you were so darn proud of yourself. A boy who can eat his way through house and home. Bananas, cook cooks (cookies), and meatballs, in that order. A boy who loves the water. I was behind you as you walked into the ocean last weekend without fear and without looking back. I hope that is something that carries over into other parts of your life one day. A boy who is headstrong. If I try to put you in the wrong shoes I will hear about it. I should know better by now. ALWAYS the blue shoes. I see a boy who is mischievous. You’ll climb from a kitchen chair, to the stool, to the top of the island just to get one of those said cook cooks. And while those snuggles are sometimes few and far between these days, I see a boy who is such a lover. You give the best hugs. And when you grab my face, put your eyes right next to mine and say, “Mamma,” I just about melt into a puddle of cliche mamma goo.

And I know next year I’ll wake up and feel the same way. That not much has changed and yet somehow everything has. And I can’t wait to see how. But for now, just stay my two-year-old, ok? Because I heard that the threenager is even worse than the terrible twos. (HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!?)

Happy Second Birthday, Hudson. You are the light of my life (even when you are throwing yourself on the middle of the Target aisle floor in protest of me not buying you those cook cooks), and I love you in ways I didn’t even know were possible.

In your honor here are some of my favorite pictures from your second trip around the sun.

Love,
Mamma

You love cheering on the Hokies…

…. But game day can take a lot out of a little man.
You are my number one photo location scouting partner… when you’re not running away from me down the streets of whatever city we happen to be in.
A lot of times you remind me to remember to take joy in the little things in life… and I love you for it.A fistful of dirt, a dead frog, live bugs. You name it, you’ve found it outside.
Spaghetti night… enough said.

No one can rock a bow tie and suspenders quite like you.
And even when there’s a slight accident because you’re dad puts a swimming diaper on you by mistake … you prove you can also rock a Canadian tuxedo better than most… as long as it’s with your blue shoes.

Wah wah! Wah wah! Doesn’t matter if it’s a pool, the bath or the ocean… that’s what you’ll be screaming. We’re still working on those ending consonants.

Most of the time you cooperate in front of the camera…