Monday, December 13, 2010

Happy Birthday, Monkey!

Monkey is four today, and it's a ridiculously busy week, like it always is on his birthday.  Midterms have gone out, so my inbox is full of dutiful parents checking up on their children's assertions that they have, indeed, completed and turned in all that work that was missing, and the students themselves are in rare, pre-holiday form.  Sickness has trampled its way through the family and back again.  We are behind on every possible mundane task imaginable, and I remember--

--I remember a very similar week, four years ago.  Monkey still wasn't due for several weeks, but I had a feeling he was coming early, so I had been working like a crazy person to get sub plans in place that could be stepped into at any time, and by anyone, in case my sub wasn't ready yet when I went into labor.

Sure enough, I remember one morning--the day before Jabber's third birthday--when I got up and thought, "Oh, no way.  I really cannot see how I am possibly going to keep doing this for the next week and a half." It felt like there was no possible way there was even a millimeter more room in my abdomen to house that lively child, and there wasn't a chance that I was going to be able to find the energy to complete a single thing that evening.  Nothing, that is, except labor and birth.

And then...everything stopped.  Life grew slow and syrupy sweet, and whole stacks of hours passed doing nothing more productive than snuggling and gazing and nursing. 

He's still that person, even at his craziest, most frenetic pace.  He can stop time, for a while--erase obligations--with the magic of his hugs. 

Happy Birthday, Snuggle-Buggle. 

4 comments:

lisahgolden said...

Happy birthday! What a sweet story. And your kids are gorgeous.

Kristan said...

Aww! Happy birthday to the time-stopping monkey!

Nomes said...

oh - happy birthday to your monkey :)

i love the way you write about it - it's such an awesome time. coming from soneone whose kids are a smidgen older and i kind of miss those cute cuddly days...

x

Anonymous said...

Love the picture; so sweet. Save it for his graduation board :-)

Lisa H.