Three!

Nicholas,

I cannot BELIEVE it’s been three whole years since you came into our lives! What a blessing you are to our family. You are so dynamic, and you captivate everyone around you.



How can I even begin to capture what you mean to me? You feel all of your emotions so very deeply (something I have a hard time identifying with), and I envy you for that. When you’re having a great time doing something, you are completely immersed in it and loving every minute. Eyes wide open, mouth agape, dimples out in full force. When you are angry about something, your eyes flash defiantly, your eyebrows furrow, and you lash out with your hands. You take such joy in the good things, and you feel such sorrow over the slights you perceive and the punishments we dole out.



We have a new routine that we fall into several times a week, one in which you say, “I want to snuggle wiff you in the chay-ah, wiff my blankie.” So after your PJs are on and I turn the lights off, we settle into your rocking chair, I wrap you up in your “Cars” blanket, and you lay your head on my chest. I rock you for about 10 minutes … sometimes you chatter to me, and sometimes you just lay there, content and limp. That time is so, so precious to me. It reminds me of when you were an infant and we spent so many hours in the dark, in the middle-of-the-night quiet, in that chair.



Another one of my very favorite things in life is to check in on you after you’ve fallen asleep. You look like the very picture of an angel, sleeping peacefully in your crib. At times like that, when you look so sweet and vulnerable, I worry about how you’re going to adjust to having a new sibling in a few months. I worry about the transition you’ll have to make from being “the baby” to being the middle child, and how my time with you might be limited for a while as we all adjust to having a new member of the family. Will my relationship with you suffer? Will it be a transition you resent having to make? I wouldn’t be able to bear it.



Please, please, please always be my little Nick, the one who wants to snuggle with me, needs to sit by me on the couch, chooses my lap at the movies, charms me with his smile.


I love you,
Mommy