Yesterday you turned five years old. We had a whirlwind weekend ringing in your 5th year with the Star Wars party you requested, and dressing up Jedi style for Halloween fun. It was motion and laughter, parties and celebration! But now, for a moment, I finally sit.
As the rain hits the windows on this dark and quiet Monday morning, I can't help but think back to what I was doing five years ago today. How I was entering the exhausting but exciting world of being a mom to both an infant and an 18 month old. How I dressed you in a newborn Halloween onesie and we had a hospital visit from a slightly confused little cow who would become an amazing big sister. How I was nursing you and holding you in my arms and falling love.
How we began to navigate through all the newness and the three of us would spend our days together, managing somehow to get everyone dressed and fed and clean. How those hours at home with two littles ones gradually grew from surviving to thriving. How the exhaustion eventually blended into the background and seeing the world through the eyes of two littles loves brought my world into more vibrant color and sharper focus than I knew possible. How God further revealed His love for me through the love I have for you and your sister.
Here come the tears. I always cry a bit around your birthdays! Not in front of you and Madi, of course. There is too much birthday fun to be had for that! No, just in my quiet moments, when I realize that the sand is indeed falling fast. When you and Madi were both so little the days often seemed long. Now they go by so quickly. Seasons roll right into the next and days turn into years. I try so hard to be present, to be in the moment with you and Madi and Daddy, to turn those moments into memories. To celebrate life together, and to teach you about God and the purpose of life. I pray over you, for you, with you. I take a thousand pictures so I can memorize life as we know it because I realize how quickly the seasons fade; and I daily try with intention to make your childhood safe, structured, happy, warm, secure, fun. I don't always do the best job. Sometimes I get worn out and impatient and frustrated. But I want you to know I try with purpose because of how much I love you.
Trevor, on your fifth birthday I also want you to know that you are an absolute joy and delight to my heart. There is not a day that goes by that you don't do or say something that makes me laugh! You are just plain funny! You have a contagious zest for life, an inner confidence that allows you to enjoy life and openly share love with others, an energy that makes me want to be like you. At five, you talk to everyone...you are always making conversation with random people as we push the cart through the grocery store or wait in the checkout line. Nearly every night you thank God for your family by name, and often call us in for a "group hug" or give us a toast of some sort at the table. People are very important to you. And in turn, you have become very important to a lot of people.
You are a prayer warrior, remembering to intercede for those in need. I love that caring spirit and the way you are willing to help others. You are also bright and social, and so enjoying your first experience in Pre-K! I look forward to hearing the cute things your teachers tell me about what you said or did in class. I think you definitely liven up the classroom! And I am thankful for how much you are enjoying school, and the amazing teachers God blessed you with.
I am also thankful that you only go to school three hours a day. That way you can still be my shopping buddy, lunch pal, and we still have some time for just us at home. One of your favorite things is when I surprise you and bring your lunch in your Star Wars lunchbox and we eat with Madi in the school cafeteria! Next year I will have to come visit you in the cafeteria then leave...but for now we still walk back out to our old minivan holding hands, heading home together. I am thankful for that.
I get a kick out of watching you play and interact when you are at home - you have a hundred sound effects and a thousand expressions. Whatever you get into, you get into...right now it is Star Wars, and you are constantly building empires, having battles with lightsabers, defeating the enemy, and imagining a galaxy that was long ago and far away. I love your energy and imagination! You also love any opportunity that you get to play on the Wii, and always impress us with your skills.
Speaking of being impressed, that's a word you've been using a lot lately. You have been telling us all that you are "impressed" by us when we do something good. You have always been and still are such a little encourager! Just last Friday when I was putting together the favors for your party you came up, put your little arms around me, and exclaimed, "Oh, I love it, you did a great job on these! Great job, Momma!" You are constantly telling us things we did a "great job" on or giving genuine compliments and it is so motivating! I sometimes wonder in those moments what God has in store for you.
I do know this. Whatever He has for you, however He plans on using your energy, charisma, personality, and talents, I pray for this...that you will love Him first, and do everything you do for His glory. I pray you will be a mighty man of God. I thank God every.single.day for the gift of being your mom. And I write this and more so that you will always have full confidence in what you are to my heart, and that we can remember what life was like when you were five and Mommy's bright-eyed little Jedi. You are and will forever be a "bwessing" to me.
With Love, Purpose, and Promise,
Momma
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