Family Pictures

Here they are!  Courtesy of the super talented toddler-whisperer that is Jill Berry Photography.  I love how they turned out, though of course there are about a million things about my own appearance that I can't stop critiquing in my head.  I am not going to allow myself to list my insecurities here though, no need to draw attention to them.  Let's just say, I'm relieved that I have the perspective of someone who has been pregnant before and then not pregnant afterwards.  It doesn't last forever, someday I'll look and feel normal again.

I'll be repeating that little mantra throughout the remaining 14+ weeks of my pregnancy.  Ugh.  It does sort of freak me out that I look and feel this pregnant already.  There is just so much time left for me to keep getting bigger and bigger.

I'll shut up.  These pictures are just so great, my boys could not be any more handsome.  I'm just amazed Jill was able to get so many smiling/happy Gus is looking at the camera shots.  Yay!  Sorry for the picture overload, I just had such a hard time choosing my favorites. 

Weekend in Wisconsin

You know those weekends that are jam packed and pretty much fantastic, but leave you feeling so exhausted that you almost crave getting home and back into your boring old routine?

Totally had one of those weekends.

It’s Wednesday and I’m just now finally starting to feel like a normal functioning person.

Friday night we met up with a friend of a friend of a friend for a little family photo shoot, in honor of Gus turning two and me being pregnant and holiday card season coming up. How on the ball am I this year right? Total fluke I tell you, normally I think of these things approximately five months after Gus’s birthday, or two weeks before Christmas, that sort of thing. But this time? I am channeling the tiny shrapnel of type A-ness that does, I swear, exist somewhere within the depths of my being. Somewhere, deep down, I am that chick who has everything together. Sure.

The session went really well (aside from my hair), but holy mother I felt like I was going to keel over from exhaustion at the end of it. Our photographer Jill was such a patient and energetic person, full of amazing ideas and seemingly boundless energy. Here’s the sneak peak she sent us, these were from the beginning of the session, after which we drove to the Lake Harriet rose gardens. I can’t wait to see the rest, and will surely post a handful of my favorites as soon as I have them.

Gus was mostly uncooperative, but honestly that came as no surprise to his parents. We were as mentally prepared as we could have been. I even sent Jill an email a few days before to warn her of what she might have gotten herself into. The thing is, she has her own two year old, and we all know how two year olds are, so I didn’t want to come across as that a-hole mom that thinks her kid is so much more unique and different and difficult than anyone else’s kid. I swear I am not that mom. It’s just that I have met other calm, sweet, angelic two year olds, and I’ve also met two year olds who are more apt to cry and pout and hang on their mom when in this type of situation, and I know neither of those are Gus.

He takes the typical craziness of a two year old and ramps it up about 2,000 notches. Case in point, Friday night’s photo session. He arches his back and screams, “Mommy RUN!” when you try to get him to sit still and smile for a picture. He tears off down the street laughing maniacally the second he is given an ounce of freedom. He drags his feet and goes limp when you try to make him hold your hand and walk somewhere he doesn’t want to walk. Towards the end of the two hours, I think we finally kind of figured out little tricks to make him smile and sit still longer than .3 seconds, but yeah, I definitely could have used a bubble bath and a long massage after that experience.

I got neither of the two, I’d like to point out, however after grabbing a bite to eat in Uptown we did go home and immediately got Gus down for the night, and by 9:00 we were both fast asleep having nightmares about future family photo sessions with two little boys. Maybe that was just me. But you get the idea. 9:00 PM Friday night bedtime. Woot! Living the life.

Gus slept until almost 7:45 Saturday morning, which was gloooorious, and I felt like a new woman. We immediately tackled the tasks at hand, which were (1. ) Breakfast, (2.) Scramble to quickly pack our bags and the car for an overnight at the cabin, and (3.) Hit the road towards Wisconsin.

On the way out of town, we stopped for coffee, of course, at the place down the street, and I had to also grab a pumpkin muffin for the three of us to share. Yes, I’m pregnant, and I often eat two breakfasts.

Two hours later we pulled into Dan’s grandparents hobby farm where we spent the rest of the day visiting with family, lounging on the hammock, giving Gus “tractor” rides, and stuffing our faces with cookies and candy corn and delicious tater tot hot dish.

(Val, I’ve swiped a few of your pictures, hope you don’t mind.)

Because we didn’t decide to try to get Gus a nap until super late, he slept for two hours all cozy on the guest bed until 6:30 PM. This is ok, we go with the flow, we cool like that, he wasn’t going to make it without a nap and this meant we were in no hurry to get out of there.

We left the farm at 8:30 to drive the hour through rural Wisconsin to Dan’s parents' lake cabin, where we planned to spend the night. The drive felt more treacherous than it really was, Dan just drives way too fast down those windy little roads, and the GPS had us taking all these crazy dirt roads through the middle of dark nowhere, and I kept waiting for a deer to jump out in front of the car. And then our car would be wrecked, and we’d be stranded in the middle of nowhere, where we would eventually meet our doom via an ax-wielding toothless serial killer in overalls.

We made it to the cabin of course, and I should say I became much more reasonable after 30 minutes when we were on an actual County road that wasn’t named “something and ¼ street”.

Of course, Gus was off-the-wall hyper at the cabin and didn’t go to sleep until after 11:00 PM, due to the late nap and all the driving and the excitement of being at the cabin. And then he woke at 6:00 the next day, raring to go, hearing his little cousins awake and running around out in the living room, and after an hour of trying to force him to go back to sleep, I gave up. And was of course all doom and gloom, “The end is near, 7 hours of sleep?! He will never make it through the day, we are surely in for it!”

Because Sunday afternoon was the big 89th birthday celebration for Dan’s Great Grandmother at another Wisconsin family farm in the area. Blerrrrgh.

Funny how everything is always SO MUCH WORSE in your mind. He was FINE. He slept for an hour on the way to the party, and then seriously just lived it up, running all over the property, pulling wagons, riding trikes, climbing on motorcycles and lawn mowers, going for a walk in the field to see the cows, climbing the fence to feed them grass. Adorables. I was kicking myself for forgetting my camera. The property and views were breathtaking, and the day was just, without a doubt, one of those perfect autumn days. And Gus wore a new sweater that could not have been cuter. Ahh, well.

And the food! Holy delicious, we dined on a huge smorgasbord of hotdishes and homemade bars. (You really can’t get much more Midwestern/Minnesotan than that sentence eh?)

Amazingly, the child did not sleep the whole drive home that evening, which was actually good, because we were able to get him to bed at a reasonable toddler bedtime rather than his usual 9:00-9:30. (He is on a very annoying schedule these days, a product of continually pushing back/fighting his nap to the point that he goes down so late in the afternoon, and then ends up taking monster 2-3 hour naps, so he’s up until almost 10:00 PM every night, and Mommy and Daddy get NO EVENING DOWNTIME. Bugger. We are a bit at a loss as to what to do, because every time we’ve tried to adjust or control his sleep patterns it ends up backfiring on us. Instead I choose to believe/hope that it’s a phase. It’s a phase… It’s a phase…)

So yes the weekend. It was a good one. It was exhausting, lots of driving, traveling, chasing, redirecting, eating, and not sleeping. And I was so happy to be home. Back to things like bills, work emails, a dentist appointment, grocery shopping. Boring. Routine. But home. And I love our home, even when I come back from a weekend to the complete disaster we left as we were racing out the door. I can even appreciate the mess, because I can putz around and tidy up on my own time, in sweat pants, from the sanctity of my own familiar, blessed home.

A few pictures of my youngest son...

I feel a little bit terrible about this, but our ultrasound was about 4 weeks ago and the CD with all the images has just been sitting unopened on our dining room table since the appointment.  I haven't once popped it in the computer to check them out, I haven't shown anyone else the first pictures of our little baby.  No upload to Facebook.

Goodness, this pregnancy is just so so different.  It's so much more just a part of life, like time keeps chugging away, life keeps on, and yeah, I'm pregnant, and yeah, our lives will change drastically in less than four months when this baby boy is born, but I just don't have as much time or energy to put into thinking about all that, worrying, hoping, wishing, wondering.  There's a lot less of all of that this time around, and I don't think it has anything to do with us being less excited about this new baby, it all just feels so much more natural, more of just this lovely little existence. 

This is us, this is now.  Expecting our second son, the belly getting bigger every day, but no time to dwell on that too much because Gus is demanding that we play Thomas trains again.  To heck with the developmental milestones and what fruit my fetus resembles this week, I'm going to go for a walk around the neighborhood with my little guy on his new bike, breath in this glorious crisp fall air.  Or it's bedtime, so we all lay in Gus's bed and, by the dim light of the cute little green lamp, we read sweet stories about dragons and little bears and their mamas, and all the while baby boy kicks and bumps and moves all over inside me and makes those moments all the more special.

Sometimes I have guilt, like I need to be making a bigger deal about things.

I should take more belly pictures.

I should know what's going on with my baby's development now at 24 weeks, but I totally don't, because I haven't logged into Babycenter since about week 7.

Am I totally setting this child up to have the stereotypical "middle child" feelings of inadequacy or of being less loved?

But usually, no.  No guilt.  Because I know how happy and blessed I feel to be pregnant with our second son, things are just different now.  I'm not the same person I was when I was pregnant with Gus.  Older?  Wiser?  Not really.  Just different priorities.  I don't have any problem with other people doing those things, not at all, I just can't seem to muster the energy it takes to get all obsessed.  I don't know why it's so different, but it is.  And for some reason, this time I want to keep things a little closer to my heart.  I feel like this is my family's story I'm living now, this baby, this pregnancy, he's not just mine, he's Dan's second son and he's Gus's little brother and it all just feels so much more special, and private.  I know, it's sort of strange and hard to explain, but it's how I feel.

Anyway, I am excited.  And I do want to share my excitement and get all proud mama and show off my littlest guy.  I'm so glad I finally took a look at these pictures again, because my heart is all a flutter this morning looking at them and thinking about him.  Wondering if he'll have that little fuzz that Gus had when he was born, thinking about what it will be like to look into his eyes and kiss his delicious little dome of a head.  I'm already just so happy to be his mama.

So here he is.  And no, we are nowhere near deciding on his name...

How cute is this chubby/muscly little arm?  Reminds me so much of Gus's little muscles when he was born. 

Specifically, of Gus in this picture.  That's him and me taking a lovely (much needed) nap when he was less than a week old.  I mean right?  They are totally brothers.  (Also, I fear these are the naps I will be pining for come January when in addition to a newborn, I've also got my loud, truck-obsessed little toddler to entertain/care for.  Goodness.  That is an exhausting thought.)    

Long and lean legs, like his dad's.

Classic profile shot.  He was moving around a ton during the ultrasound, thus the reason why he's laying completely the opposite way from the first picture.   

There you have it.  The first pictures of my youngest boy.  I'm happy I finally shared them.  

School

Just because most of the pictures I take with my phone never see the light of day, here are a few recent ones, mostly from last night at our neighborhood’s annual “meet and greet”. It was a lovely evening.










So fall is here and school has started, for Gus and I that means Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) classes have commenced, and we went to our first “toddler” class yesterday. I’m bummed that it seems none of the ladies I got to know last year in class have stuck with Mondays. Actually it surprises me (and annoys me a little) that a few of them have contacted me to ask if they’ll be seeing us again on Wednesday, and others have left me nice Facebook comments being all, “See you Wednesday!” Nice gesture, thanks for thinking about us, but no. We’re in Monday’s class. I work Tuesday through Thursday. I have always made this clear. That’s why we were in Monday class, WITH YOU, last year.

It shouldn’t bother me, but I just don’t get where the confusion comes from. I sat with these ladies in a circle talking about mom stuff and the elusive work/life/childrearing balance every Monday morning for about 9 months last year. We aren’t best friends, we don’t talk about everything, but jeez, my only days home are Mondays and Fridays, THIS people know. Just like I know the one chick’s husband is a podiatrist and she has become obsessed with running over the past six months, and the blonde perky lady with an Australian accent is from New Zealand and she has two daughters and a son, and that other lady’s little girl was a preemie born at 30 weeks, and that one girl talks loudly and rudely to her neighbor while other people are speaking, and that girl’s kids are always sick and believe it or not, suck at sleeping even more than Gus.

Whatever, it just feels like that classic high school “thing” where I pay attention to other people, I know who they are, I remember the things they say. I know them, but they don’t know me, you know? I always felt that way about the popular kids in high school. Though mommy-hood and parenting groups and all that can be a bit like high school, if you haven’t noticed, so whatever. It really shouldn’t bother me, but I guess I’m admitting it does.

Anyway… this means we know no one in our new class, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else really knows each other either, so this could be good. Clean slate. It really is a new school year, new teacher, new classmates, starting fresh.

Did I mention it’s all boys? Nine two year old boys. Goodness. As you might expect, I was exhausted after our hour and a half class yesterday, because that’s a lot of two year olds all up in one room for the first time scoping out a bunch of new-to-them toys.

Gus and I are both so far removed from all things “school” and routine, it will be an interesting experience. Circle time. Singing songs. Crafts. Sharing. Sitting at a table for more than 45 seconds to eat a snack.

I am hopeful for a fun little adventure each week. And I am getting pumped about the fact that for an hour every Monday I get to go sit in a quiet room and talk to other moms of toddlers and drink coffee while someone else helps to teach my son things like shapes and colors and days of the week, and maybe even to be a little civilized. Though I dare say that last one would probably be asking too much of my little guy. ;)

I am hoping none of the moms are a-holes, but again, that is probably me asking too much of the program. Every moms group needs at least one or two of them, I suppose, keeps things interesting.

TWO

Dear Gus,

You are two. TWO. Can you believe it? Yeah, me neither. Two whole years with you and I just don’t know if I can find the words that convey how wonderful they have been. What did we even do before you? I vaguely remember those mystical days, lots of studying, working, television, happy hours, softball games, wild weekends with friends up north… and beer, lots and lots of beer. Yeah, your mom and dad had fun before you were born, but something was definitely missing, whether we realized it or not.

Guess what buddy, it was you. YOU were missing. And now that we have had you for two life-altering, exciting, exhausting, joyful, overwhelming, perfectly chaotic years, we get it. We get what we were missing.

We are so lucky to have been blessed with you, not just anyone, but YOU buddy. And as you have gotten older and we’ve started to see what kind of person you are becoming, well life just keeps getting better and better.

You are so talkative, chattering constantly about trains and bulldozers, back-hoes, dump trucks, police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, motorcycles. Yeah, you most definitely are into vehicles, and you point them out to us on the streets, you read about them in your books, and you tell us all about the noises they make. You spend your days vroom-ing them around the living room, pulling out Thomas trains for daddy to play with you, getting angry and frustrated when you inadvertently mess up the track or have trouble pushing your trains.

Buddy, two-years-old is all about the frustration and the fury, because you so badly want to be able to do all these things that you just can’t quite do. You think you’re much more grown up than you are, and we have to remind you that it’s ok to mess things up, big kids and grown-ups a-like mess things up all the time! Sometimes we just have to say, “Train time is over for now”, and pull you away, when exclamations of “Oh no! Oh no!” turns into throwing and kicking and screaming and attacking the dog even though it’s really not her fault that Toby flew off the track when he went down the hill.

There’s just so much going on in that little blonde head of yours, I often find myself thinking about what you might be thinking, your tiny awesome brain is fascinating to your mama, kiddo. All of a sudden, it seems, you know your ABC’s and can count to ten and beyond. When did that happen? I don’t know, it just did, and no doubt about it you make your mother and father beam with pride over these new skills.

Of course we think you are just the smartest, funniest, kindest little two-year-old there is. We realize, there are a lot of really fantastic two-year-olds out there, but you’re definitely our favorite. Without a doubt, you are rough-and-tumble, you have one speed and it is very fast, you love to jump on the bed singing “Train is coming! Train is coming! Train is coming, to our town!” and sometimes at bedtime it is very difficult to calm you down. We know we’re in for it when after your bath you take to racing around your bedroom in circles, or doing little toddler killers, sprinting from one end of the house to the other. Wow. Those nights we make sure to read lots of very calming bedtime stories, we lay in bed all four of us (yes your doggy too) drinking milk and saying goodnight to the moon and stars, and noises everywhere.

So yes, rough-and-tumble, but there is also so much sweetness in you. You have such a tender heart. Almost as often as you attack her and pull her tail, you give your doggy as many kisses and snuggles, and you go crazy asking us to get down her bag of treats. You’ve started to say, “Lub you too!” when we tell you we love you, and I almost can’t stand it. Gotta admit, you’re pretty stingy with your kisses for most people, but not with mama. Some days after a long day of being apart, the kisses I get from you are a little overwhelming, the sloppy, open-mouthed, teeth smashing, chubby hands pulling in my cheeks kinds of kisses that you really have to see to believe. Ridiculous and hilarious little make-out sessions that you reserve just for mommy.

Oh my goodness, you have so much love for your grandparents and all your aunts and uncles. The other day on one of my Fridays off, you and I got in the car to run a few errands, and we drove past the place we would normally turn to go get grandma, and you started crying little guy! You pouted and yelled “Gwamma!” as we drove past, clearly confused as to why she wasn’t coming along on whatever adventure we were off to, as she so often does. That was very sweet, and I should tell grandma that story because I think it would make her very happy to know that a trip to Costco is just not the same without her.

I think you have a bit of an infatuation for your uncle James, you talk about him with me a lot, and you seem to just gravitate to him or his exciting bedroom when you are at your Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I don’t really get what it is about him particularly, but there’s probably not much to get. He’s very cool, great hair, funny but super easy going, gives you lots of attention, I guess it makes sense.

Anyway, yesterday was your birthday my sweet Gus. And we had a very quiet, laid-back day, just you, me, and your dad. We had a busy weekend, and had spent Sunday up at the cabin, so your routine was a little messed up. But in a good way. When we were at the lake on Sunday you got very sleepy from all your hard playing, and you ended up taking a very late nap until 7:00 PM, so that meant you were a ball of energy late into the night when we got home. So we snuggled downstairs eating a delicious pear and watching a movie until after 10:00 when you ventured into the basement bathroom and found your birthday present hidden in the shower! Darn it! We almost made it to your birthday, but you are just too curious, and you happened upon our hiding spot for your new wagon! (We’ll find a better spot for Christmas presents I suppose.)

Well, you loved it. You spent the next half hour climbing in and out of it, dragging it around the basement, jabbering away telling us all about how wonderful it is. We’re so glad you like your present buddy.

The next day, on your birthday, while dad made cupcakes and mom made a big batch of soup for dinner, you sat in your wagon and watched cartoons for much longer than should have been allowed. But that’s okay, it was your birthday. After all the cooking and baking was finished we went for a long walk in your new wagon, and picked up a Happy Meal along the way for lunch at the park. Another great birthday indulgence. After the park, we sang Happy Birthday to you, and you blew out the candles on your cupcake, which may have been the most adorable thing I have ever seen, and then we listened to a message from your cousins Marcella, William, and Lucas singing you Happy Birthday. You exclaimed for the rest of the day, “Appy burtday Gus!” and just generally seemed quite pleased with all the celebration.

And the rest of the day was pretty much like any day, ending with a bath and stories and mama snuggling with you until we were both fast asleep. A good day. A good life.

We love you buddy, two is going to be a BIG year for you, because you’re going to have a baby brother! I know it will be an adjustment, but I really think you’re going to love it. So thank you for being our guinea pig these two wonderful years, we don’t always know what we’re doing, but we must be doing something right because you are you, and you are perfect. And we are so lucky to be your parents.

7 Posts

A blog meme!  How very, 2005 of me!

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What this is about:

To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.

Rules:
1) Blogger is nominated to take part
2) Blogger publishes his/her 7 links on his/her blog – 1 link for each category.
- Your most beautiful post
– Your most popular post
– Your most controversial post
– Your most helpful post
– A post whose success surprised you
– A post you feel didn’t get the attention it deserved
– The post that you are most proud of

3) Blogger nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part.

4) These bloggers publish their 7 links and nominate another 5 more bloggers

5) And so it goes on!

6) The site Trip Base is sharing the best posts from participating bloggers on their blog and everyday on Facebook and Twitter at #My7Links

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Alright, so Erin tagged me in this meme a few days ago and I felt quite honored, like I’m a real blogger or something.

But then I started to try to do it, and now am cursing Erin’s name (not really), because man, this was not an easy task. I’ve been reading through a lot of my old posts and having quite the trip down memory lane, but really most of what has been documented on this blog is so haphazard and nonsensical, not to mention the fact that my posting has been so sporadic over the course of, like 7 years. I mean, I talked A LOT about TV back in the day, it’s truly amazing to have such tangible evidence of how drastically my life changed when we had a child. Crazy. Like this post that I wrote when I was starting my MBA studies, in which I complain incessantly about how busy I was and how terrible it was that grad school was going to have such a drastic affect on my social life and television-watching habits. HA! Oh lady, you have no idea what’s in store for you in just a few short years! It’s honestly like reading something someone else wrote. Who is that crazy girl? She sure complained a lot about really ridiculous things like… static cling, tampons, her seemingly constant 9-5 funk, and hanging Christmas tree lights. I was just a barrel of joy. Jeez.

So now that I’ve sent you back to a lot of old things I wrote that actually make me cringe, I’ll try to complete this meme. I may have to make some modifications and break the rules a little, because I had a really hard time finding things that fit some of these categories. I clearly am NOT a real blogger, like I let myself believe for a few seconds there.

Most beautiful post

I should probably link to Gus’s birth story here, but I’m not going to. Because while lovely, it’s full of a lot of the gory details that I just can’t classify as “beautiful”.

Instead, I really like this one that I wrote last summer, in which I come across very… zen. It brings back such wonderful memories of our first year with baby Gus, it was a glorious summer, and, my goodness he was a delicious 10-month old. It’s short and sweet, but I love it.

 
Most popular post

At first I thought my method for choosing my “Most popular post” would be to find the one with the most comments from people that I don’t know in real life. So that would be this little ditty with lots of cute pictures of my 1 year old in a snowsuit at the tree farm, for which I received FOUR whole comments from “strangers”. Look at me, I am so popular!

But then I thought I would check my blog stats and see which post has the most page views of all time, and it is this ridiculousness that I wrote last winter, all about my search for the elusive, non-frumpy clog.  Clearly there are others out there like me, constantly on the lookout for sensible mom footwear that does not make you feel like a complete fashion “don’t”.  

A very close second in page views is this doozy in which I wallow about the poor start we got to 2011, via “The Sickness”.  Ahh man, those were some rough months.  But seriously, I wonder what brought so many random people to that specific post, is it because I mention Sister Wives?  Or do people just like to hear about others vomiting all over each other?  Very interesting…

Most controversial post

I am admittedly not very controversial on this here blog, I write what I feel, say what I think, but I am not out there preaching my opinions on things like politics, religion, or parenting. Even though yeah, like most people, I have some strong opinions.

Thus, I’m going to say my most controversial post is about the stealth pooper in my office a few years back. I’m saying this is controversial because I was being kind of snotty and judgy, especially about her white high tops, and I think talking about pooping at your workplace is somewhat uncouth and always going to be a little controversial.

Most helpful post

No idea. Literally none. I am not helpful, and don’t post anything informative for anyone else. I am totally selfish like that.

So instead, I’ll link you to my least interesting, most unhelpful post, in which I ramble about Lost. Yes, the TV show. I told you, I wrote a lot about TV back in the day. Oh those were the days…

A post whose success surprised me


I think this post triggered a lot of good discussion amongst people I’m close to, and I still stand by it. I think every new mother should embrace her instincts and disregard any unwanted piece of advice from other people that just doesn’t sit well with her. You are the mom, OWN IT. You know your kid best, you know your family best, and you need to stand up for what you believe in. And then… be flexible, throw out any preconceived notions about motherhood that you had. Because your former twenty-something self was probably an ass hole. (No offense.)

A post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved


I don’t know how to judge this at all. Clearly I do not have a popular blog with a plethora of readers that is updated frequently, so this is really just impossible to answer. Plus, back in the early days of blogging I used Haloscan for commenting, which, I have no idea what happened to it, but I swear it was the thing back then. When I got rid of it, I lost all those lovely comments, so it looks like basically I had no one reading back then. But I swear I did. My friends mostly, but still.

Instead, let’s break the rules again, and I will give you this post I wrote about one of the most wonderful people in the whole world. I was missing her like crazy back then because she went and moved to Costa Rica for three years, and she was making a trip back for the holidays and I just couldn’t wait to see her. So, because I love her, and I love that I happened upon this when I was reading through my archives, here is my little ode to Lisa, the best friend a girl could ask for.

The post I am most proud of


Of course I’m talking about my poor sleeper of a son, and the years of sleep deprivation he has already brought us, because really that has been probably the toughest part of parenting so far. But it’s not insurmountable, because he is my child. I brought him here, I am the grown up and he relies on me for safety, stability, love. And I will do everything I can to provide him with those things, just as any parent would.

Edited to add............

Oops!  I forgot to tag people.  I don't think I'm going to actually, because I'm a rule breaker.  If you feel like doing it friends, go for it, I would love to read it!