My Baby is a Baby no more

Two years ago...just a wee nugget.

I stood in the card aisle.

An aisle array with a rainbow of colours and loving words.

My eyes scan the Happy Birthday section until I find what I'm looking for.

Happy Second Birthday!

My throat catches abruptly as my heart clenches.

I know it's just your second birthday but I keep saying to your Dad, "Where did the past 2 years go?"

His response being, "And soon he'll be 10 and you'll be asking the same thing."

Then 20...I think ruefully to myself.

And you'll be off gallivanting with your college friends forgetting all about your old Mom and Dad who kissed your boo-boos and cuddled you endlessly.

Who cooed and awwwed over every little adorable thing you said and did.

I let the memory of your day of birth wash over me like the warmth of the sun as I stood in the card aisle at Walmart becoming ridiculously emotional over you, my baby boy in every sense of the word, turning two.

Just like with your brother, I knew exactly who you were before I met you.

You were such a calm, rolling gentle force growing in this belly of mine.

It didn't surprise me in the least that you had just the same personality as an infant.  Though you emerged full of the most intense but beautiful cries...and I cried those tears right along with you beautiful boy.

Ever joyous tears.

"It's a BOY!"


I somehow knew that too.

And I knew that you were a Finley Alexander right at that very moment.  Named after my beloved Grandmother.  The Great-Grandmother that you unfortunately never had the pleasure of knowing.  Finlay was her maiden name...a woman who was extraordinary in every way.

The first year of your life you were a most delightful baby...rarely crying only when you were hungry, thirsty or tired.

It took a while to get a hold of a good night's sleep.

A mere 17 months before you would regularly sleep through the night.

But you can't have everything, so they say.

I revelled in your babyhood, carrying you everywhere whether you were sleeping or not.  I couldn't let a moment of it pass me by.  Knowing how quickly it went with your older brother.

I look at you now and can't get enough of your impish grin, your soft chubby dimpled cheeks and the deep blue of your happy eyes.

I love listening to you talk, though you still babble away in a language I've yet to understand with a few words like cookie, gummy (this is due to your brother's obsessive gum chewing habit), Daddy, Aidy and of-course, Mommy, thrown in once in a while.

But my favourite thing of all, is when I tell you I love you.  You look at me knowing well, the meaning of those three precious words and you respond...."Loveeeey" in your soft musical voice, eyes alight with sparkle.

My heart fills full.

Happy second Birthday Fin, Finner, McGinner, Magoo, Finny, Finnegan.

Finley Alexander.

My sweet, loving, funny, willful, smart, supremely independent, particular, sensitive, slide and crust hating, cookie and music loving, booty shaking baby boy.

As I always tell you and your brother, I love you to the moon and back, forever and ever...

And always.

Don't you ever forget that.

Look at you now.  Exactly 2 years, almost to the hour.
How I love that face.