One Year

Today my son celebrated his first birthday. It was a lovely day, despite a gray sky and a steady drizzle – I made him a chocolate cake (his favorite), and we had a low-key celebration with only the family. Lou was happy and carefree; amused to be the focus of so many sets of eyes. He is often shy amidst strangers and commotion, but today it seemed his element. Another reminder that my boy is always changing, always growing.
I can’t help but reflect today on how much life has changed in the last year. In fact, as I write, it was nearly a year ago to the minute that Lou made his entry into the world. A quarter after eight – he arrived, tiny and gray, with not a lot of pushing and not a lot of warning. His first cry was not that lusty, red-faced shriek a new mother expects, but more a soft, tired whimper. He was small and thin, a mere five pounds – he seemed more like a fragile, exquisite piece of crystal than the substantial, hearty baby I had expected. I was too exhausted, too frightened of what would happen next (to him, to all of us – How would I feed him? Was I capable of taking care of so tiny a being?), simply too unsure to hold him peacefully and bond. I now regret those first moments. I regret that he spent his first night of life in the care of nurses, his mother in another room, burdened with uncertainty.
How quickly my mother instinct quieted my internal self-doubting, though. How quickly, in responding to his needs, I developed a consuming, selfless love for him that my pre-mother self never knew possible. How much the little guy has come to mean to me over the course of a year. I have been so fortunate to watch the changes of the last year, to see a spunky personality emerge from that fog of newborn confusion.
Happy 1st Birthday, Louison. I am so glad that I had you.