Happy Birthday Ethan!

Today, this delightful boy turns 11 years old.

Eleven years ago today, two weeks before my due date, I woke up knowing that I would be giving birth that day. Seven hours later, I was holding a precious, tiny bundle in my arms. He had a cowlick on the right side of his forehead, a tiny button nose, and he was ready to eat right away. He was perfect. I was in love.

For the first year of his life, he had a quiet personality, prone to bouts of crying for no reason. And he looked like an angel- a very well-fed angel. He was very loving and gave everybody big wet kisses. He loved music and would dance in rhythm to whatever music was playing. He would play with his plastic blocks, but instead of building with them, he would use one as a bat and one as a ball and whack them all over the living room. It was really quite impressive that he had such good timing for a baby.

Right before he turned one, he turned into quite a character!  He loved catching his older brother in a headlock with his big meaty thighs. He loved to throw things. He loved to wrestle. He loved to eat and thought he had to eat whenever anybody else was eating. He really loved balls and monkeys.

There were times he gave me a hard time and I would get so frustrated, but now I look back at them with a smile. Like when he was one and he decided that he no longer liked to sit in water for his bath. So I had to put a stool in the tub for him to sit on so that only his feet would be in the water. Or when he was three and needed to wear jeans to preschool on the first cool day of fall. I put them on him and he said, "These shorts are too long." It took quite a bit of convincing him to wear them. Or when he started kindergarten and informed me that it was not the place for him- that he'd rather stay home with me.

I remember him getting so upset with me because I wouldn't strap him to our plastic basketball goal with a rocket and shoot him in the air. I remember finding a bird wing in the boys' playroom. I remember getting poked with a plastic sword through the head rest in the car. I remember not being fast enough to pick up his gum that had fallen to the floor in a store before he had it back in his mouth. I remember watching him swan dive onto the floor at McDonalds instead of jumping to his feet.

The stories are endless. The memories are priceless. I am so blessed to call this boy my son.
Happy Birthday Ethan! I love you to the moon and back.