Happy Birthday Garrett!!!

My baby boy... all grown up! Happy Birthday to the one that started it all! I used to dream of having babies. I had dozens of dolls because I really, really wanted to be a mom. Now I watch people like Dr. Phil asking a woman if she is addicted to being pregnant! Okay, first of all, seriously, only a man would ask a woman if she is addicted to being pregnant. Yes... oh yes, I love that I get to throw up for months on end, get incredibly fat and uncomfortable and not be able to breathe, let alone sleep for months and oh, the stretch marks... gotta love those. Lose yourself to another human being for, well... for the rest of your life. Yep, gotta say I am addicted to being pregnant! It's just so fun!!!

For me, it isn't so much of an addiction, it's just been a driving force in everything I do. For my entire life. It's like I felt the call to be a mother before I understood what it even meant, and thankfully I married the most amazing man who had the same dream of family and we were able to create that family together. I remember when we found out about Garrett. Thayne was so excited. I remember the hours we would lay on the couch watching our very tiny TV and dreaming about who this person would be that was growing within me. I remember how he would put his hand on my stomach like he was protecting the tiny life growing inside! They didn't do routine ultrasounds with him so we didn't know if he was a boy or a girl. It didn't really matter... but oh the look on Thayne's face when they put this very large baby boy in his arms. His chest puffed up to where I thought his buttons were going to pop off his shirt. He was smitten. That was his boy! Look at what he had created! His son! I was so in love with both of them at that moment that I could barely contain it. I had given him a son and felt like life was wonderful. I loved being a mom. I loved everything about it. I had practiced my whole life to be a mom. So bringing him home was nothing new, nothing scary or overwhelming, it was just absolute, pure joy. I loved feeding him, bathing him, dressing him, taking him out and showing him off. I didn't mind that he was so big that he spread my ribs to make more room, or that THREE days before he was born I got stretch marks! Sometimes when I am in bed I feel my ribs and laugh at how deformed they feel now... but it was worth it! Garrett and I would go for a walk everyday as soon as the weather was warm enough. He had a little baseball cap and sunglasses and even at 3 months he knew how to work his charm. I loved being his mom! He has blessed, and tried my life in the way only a child can. He was the first born. He was, as my friend always says, "my starter child" since I learned how to parent through him. Sometimes I failed, sometimes I succeeded but through it all, I have loved him without condition. We have moved beyond the years where I need to 'mother' him. We have moved into a place where we can be friends. I love seeing him with his wife and knowing him on an adult level. But no matter how old he is or that he towers over me, he will always be my baby boy. I will always be his mother. There will always be times when I have something to share that may help him, just hopefully not in a way that is overbearing to him. But, I will always remember the way it felt when they put him in my arms and I knew that I had lived my entire life for that moment. Those times go far too quickly. They grow up before we blink. But I know that I did cherish every second of those precious moments... I know that it's not worth wishing away the madness of babyhood, or toddlerhood, or the preschool years... because far too soon they are adults with hopes and dreams of their own.

Happy birthday son... may you find the joy in your life that you have brought to mine. It's not possible to know how a parent loves, until you are a parent yourself... but my wish for you is that you always know love. That you always feel loved and that more than anything, you are always willing to give love, because that is where true joy lies!