To my Garrett, on your fifth birthday,
My sweet boy, today you turn five years old. I feel like your fourth birthday party was just a minute ago. This year has flown by and I’m so not ready for all of the things that lie ahead for you in the next year, like starting Kindergarten and losing your first tooth. I am not ready for you to shed your sweet 4 year old Garrettisms, like how you call a sneeze a “bless you.” I’m going to miss you calling the remote a “gamote”, or asking me to “cwug” (plug) in the iPad. I’ll always miss hearing you saying “sauceswish” for sausage and “pasgetti” for spaghetti and “patterin” for pattern. Once you turn five I fear I’ll never hear those sweet mispronounced words again. I’m going to miss them so much.
Your heart is so big, so caring and so full of love. You tell me that you will love me for a hundred, billion, million, bajillion years and I have no doubt that you mean it with your whole heart. When I drop you off at preschool you tell me that you will miss me for 25 hundred days. You take my glasses off of my face and tell me I’m so much prettier without them, and I totally believe you. You make my heart melt with your big brown eyes and all those gorgeous freckles splattered across your cheeks. Your eyebrows are shaped exactly like Granddaddy’s, and your lips look just like your Daddy’s. You got my heart-shaped chin and (thankfully) your dad’s long feet and toes. Five years ago I could never have imagined what you would look like, but the first time I saw your face I knew you were going to be the perfect mixture of everyone who contributed to your gene pool. I’ve never shared your birth story on my blog, Garrett, but I want you to know that it was a joyous day, filled with nothing but overwhelming love and happiness and lots of morphine for your mama. You didn’t hurt me one bit, so thank you for that.
As much as you love books, these days you would rather hear me tell a bedtime story that I make up off the top of my head rather than read a book. I have to admit that my brain is tired from making up all these stories about Gus chasing a squirrel named Tootsie Roll, and Mr. Turtle and Snoopy and Doopy that live underneath Granny’s boathouse. Luckily I have an entire arsenal of Snoopy and Doopy tales stored up in my memory from when I was a kid. When I was your age my Pop told me stories about those guys and their crazy antics, except back then they lived underneath his boathouse. I hope you remember all of them to pass down to your kids one day. One thing I’m excited about is teaching you this year is how to play cards. It’s about time we started to get you hooked on Canasta so you can learn to count like a pro. Let’s make your great-Granny proud.
I’m sorry that I haven’t written more about your life and latest updates recently. I was so good about writing monthly updates when you were a baby, and I look back now on those blog entries with so much fondness and joy. I am so happy that I documented your progress so well back then, because my memory has already faded on so many of those moments. I hope that I don’t regret not keeping up with it better now that you are older. There are so many things I mean to write down and time slips away from me before I can get them down on paper. I don’t want to lose these memories of you right now, at this age- my favorite age so far. Your hilarious sense of humor is forming, and there is nothing that I love to hear more than you laughing so hard that you get the hiccups. There are surefire ways to get laughs out of you, and most of them involve talking about burps or poots. There is nothing funnier than typical boy bathroom humor or someone falling down on America’s Funniest Home Videos.
I wish that someone could invent a way to slow down time for just a little bit so I don’t blink and miss entire months or years of your life. I wish I could save time in a bottle, like the song says, but I cannot. I just have to try to enjoy each moment as they come and appreciate the fact that I have been blessed enough to be your mother.
Happy fifth birthday, my sweet, handsome son. I will love you for a hundred million, trillion, kajillion bajillion years.
XOXO,
Mama
A million thanks to Lori at Shooting Star Photography for taking these amazing picture of Garrett and me together for Valentine’s Day. She is awesome! I have never seen such a great picture of the two of us together. This chick has mad skills!
Such a sweet post today. My son has turned 12 and it seems like I just brought him home last week!
It’s wonderful to see you enjoying every minute of his sweet life. So many moms I talk to seem to be tied up in how “hard it is” and overlook the true joy of the simple things they do each day.
I had to laugh at one point because my son, Nick, used to say “patterin” as well. Thanks for reminding me!
Absolutely gorgeous portraits!
This is such a beautiful post! I gave birth to my second baby 6 weeks ago and maybe it’s hormones but I’ve really started thinking about how quickly the years pass, especially now my boy doesn’t seem so little anymore compared to his sister! This post reminded me to savour all the small things and has inspired me to write these memories down, so thank you!xxx
This brought me to tears! Loved every word and how you used the pictures :). BTW, Kate said “patterin” for pattern up to a few weeks ago when I realized she now pronounced it correctly! Broke my heart!!!
Sweetest birthday post every! You have a very lucky little boy!
Gosh, I love the Internet. I just heard Merle Haggard singing that Okie from Muskogee song. I wasn’t sure what the term “pitichin woo” meant so I Googled it. Lo and behold, I found this blog post of yours.
You have a beautiful family. God bless you.
Seamus
[…] portraits made since Garrett was one year old, and now he’s five. Garrett and I had our picture snapped together for Valentine’s Day, but J wasn’t included. Even on special occasions, we are not great at jumping in front of […]
[…] When my niece was 5 years old my parents took her to Disney world. They found a street vendor who created the most beautiful portrait paintings from photographs, so they got my nieces portrait painted, which has hung over the piano in their living room for years now. Fast forward to this year when Garrett turned five and we visited Disney with my parents. My parents wanted to capture him at the same age, so my mom searched out the oil painting lady. Unfortunately she was no longer at Disney, but my mom tracked down her information and discovered that she was still doing commissioned work. Mom emailed her this picture from our Valentine’s photo shoot with Lori Gordon: […]