Five years ago today at 9 a.m., Joshua Kenneth entered the world and made me a mother.
I was induced the day after my due date because of high blood pressure. I was in labor about 12 hours from start to finish, but ended up having an emergency C-section. The first 10 hours were great, honestly, the last two hours were horrific, truly, but then Joshua was out, and healthy, and beautiful, and it was all worth it.
Joshua was the sweetest baby. So sweet, and so easy. Easy easy easy. He made Bobby and me think we were naturally good parents (then Sophie came along and burst that bubble). He was so loving and such a joy. And you know what? He still is! He’s the sweetest kid on earth!
Some of my favorite Joshua-isms through the years:
* He calls my mom “Muck” – he just made it up when he was about 18 months old. We have no idea why! (No, he had not yet seen Bob the Builder when he came up with that).
* For the longest time, he pronounced the word “huge” with an “f” – “fuge”. To this day we now put “f” in front of a lot of words we say like “fawesome”, and “famazing”. It’s very fun, you should try it (just uh, try it in your head first before you try it out loud, ya know?)
* For about a six-month period when he was between one and two, Joshua LOVED the song “Who are the people in your neighborhood”. He saw it on an episode of Sesame Street and he would sing it allll the way through, complete with wildly flapping hand motions and a BIG finish. He called it “me-hood”. It was the cutest thing ever, and I remember my dad especially loved it and would try to get him to do it. We were all sooo sad when he finally stopped!
As he’s gotten older, one of my favorite things about my son is that he’s now applying his sweetness to the way he treats his little sister. He really is the most loving brother, and it is very heart-warming for me to see how much he and Sophie love each other.
Today my husband took the day off work so we can just enjoy and celebrate our big guy. I’m feeling really sad that he’s so big, but really thankful that he’s grown from such a beautiful baby into such an awesome kid!
So happy birthday, baby boy. I love you more than you could ever know, and I sure do love being your mommy. It’s pretty much the best gig around.
