Two Whole Years

Oh sweet reason for so much of my being

You are two today

and so is the part of this life where my title is 'mama'

.

I feel like a little salt water fountain

watching you play with small tools that will help make a garden this summer

toys that are not general-infant-cuteness but instead specific 

and just to your liking.

Two years ago you were a little early and just breathtaking in your fresh beauty

and I was lost and besotted and bleeding and confident in my instinct and my fear. 

Two years ago at this time Anthony and I were eating our catered meal at the hospital in a suite with dim lighting and constant comforting care, nurses lighting in and out

like fireflies taking more blood to make sure I was okay,

checking on you and the fluid you were clearing from your earth-side lungs.

The evening was settling over the green hills near the hospital and we were exhausted and responsible and foreign to ourselves and each other.

Hormones were tsunamis and love was the sun and nights were pure dread

with me milk-soaking the sheets if you slept too long

staying awake with all my might to nurse you, wondering at my own fortitude

and then suddenly we are old seasoned pros here, sleeping all three tucked together like we've existed in this entwine since time began

easy as Sunday morning

and twice as comfortable

.

Your Daddy is extra funny

and he loves you so much it's unreal,

how did he exist before you? 

You are one plus one.

You are so capable and yet so hell-bent still on your own destruction in new and funny/terrifying ways.

You've got the furrowed brow down to a science

and a zeal for wrestling and being tickled behind your knees

you loved your cake which I am STILL tired from baking yesterday,

everything from scratch because I am ridiculous.

Crunchy-granola obsessed with your foods being as organic as possible.

You will have an IV drip of corn syrup surely when you wriggle out of my healthy grasp,

but for now your butter is eye-rollingly local and your sugar fair trade.

You are so tall

so strong

so wonderful I can't even bear it.

Last night when Oma and I gave you a bath you said "I'm naked! Oh my GOSH!"

and we laughed like hyenas.

Thank you, little prince, little kind despot.

Thank you for being our boy, for every single second we've been gifted to love you

and introduce you to the wide-open possible world.

Two years of wonder so complete I can scarcely believe I lived before you did.

I'll tell you the stories when you are grown enough, the tales of how I came to be your ever-loving mama, the story of how I found the heart of everything important

on earth in you.

Love,

Mama