My precious Son,
Today you turn five years old! I can’t believe how fast time has flown since you have been in our lives.
You are one of the most amazing people I have ever met. You have a spirit for creativity in so many ways, whether it’s painting with great composition, or drawing impeccable details in a setting, or acting out roles of heroes or bad-guys, or the stories that enfold them. You see the ice cream cone in a used toilet paper roll, and anything—ANYTHING—can be a cape. When you were two, you wore your red superman cape for over a year everywhere we went, including the grocery store and church, and at both places you were known for the cape, despite it frilling out from under your snow coat in the winter or with nothing but shorts and sandals in the summer. But now, your tastes have developed an affinity for more sophisticated capes, and they must flow in a certain way as you run, and they must be a certain length against the back of your legs, to be a favorite. When at the nursery at church, the baby swaddling blankets are your capes. This year, you discovered Peter Pan, and found that story an adventure with a little hero who fights the bad guy. You drank in the tale like water, invigorated with every piece of it. We took you to
your first play, a local theater company who performed Peter Pan in April, and you loved it, your fingers crossed in reverence as the young woman actress decked out in green glided onto the stage by a cord around her waist. Your brown eyes were ignited as you watched. I plan to hold a Peter Pan party for you later this month, God willing. Your vibrant spirit has always amazed me.
your first play, a local theater company who performed Peter Pan in April, and you loved it, your fingers crossed in reverence as the young woman actress decked out in green glided onto the stage by a cord around her waist. Your brown eyes were ignited as you watched. I plan to hold a Peter Pan party for you later this month, God willing. Your vibrant spirit has always amazed me.
You show such strength, too.
This week we have moved from the house we brought you home to when (five years ago?!?) you were our wondrous miracle from the hospital. It was a hard move for us as adults, and emotional for me in many ways. The last days at our old house you wept a lot because you were sad about leaving the one thing we couldn’t pack with us in to U-Haul: the playhouse. “I miss my playhouse,” you cried at nap one day for an hour, and I held you and shushed and rubbed your heaving back, and you did so again at bedtime, and I promised you that you could have the little room under the stairs in the new house, and you were grateful and although still sad, you perked a bit. I was so impressed with the health in your grieving. You were aware of leaving something loved behind, and needed to be sad, like we were in so many ways, but your processing was very healthy, and I was so touched by the depth of your understanding. It was curious, as well. You see, I had a playhouse when I was little. When your father and I bought that house in March 2004 we knew we would start our family there, and that it had a playhouse sealed the deal for me. I was so tickled to have a playhouse for my children, in fact more than having a house I think in retrospect. It’s been the one thing that has symbolized your loss in the move. And although it’s broken my heart to see you weep in such grief, like a death, I was filled with hope when yesterday you told me you loved our new home, but you’ll always miss the playhouse.
This week we have moved from the house we brought you home to when (five years ago?!?) you were our wondrous miracle from the hospital. It was a hard move for us as adults, and emotional for me in many ways. The last days at our old house you wept a lot because you were sad about leaving the one thing we couldn’t pack with us in to U-Haul: the playhouse. “I miss my playhouse,” you cried at nap one day for an hour, and I held you and shushed and rubbed your heaving back, and you did so again at bedtime, and I promised you that you could have the little room under the stairs in the new house, and you were grateful and although still sad, you perked a bit. I was so impressed with the health in your grieving. You were aware of leaving something loved behind, and needed to be sad, like we were in so many ways, but your processing was very healthy, and I was so touched by the depth of your understanding. It was curious, as well. You see, I had a playhouse when I was little. When your father and I bought that house in March 2004 we knew we would start our family there, and that it had a playhouse sealed the deal for me. I was so tickled to have a playhouse for my children, in fact more than having a house I think in retrospect. It’s been the one thing that has symbolized your loss in the move. And although it’s broken my heart to see you weep in such grief, like a death, I was filled with hope when yesterday you told me you loved our new home, but you’ll always miss the playhouse.
You have the Villanueva gift of charisma. You’re so friendly! Everyone is a friend! I’ve had to really crack down on you for talking to strangers in public this year, teaching you to gauge when it’s appropriate to do so or not. Like telling the little boy behind us in the line at Winco that he shouldn’t hit his little sister, or telling the director at Circle of Friends Preschool that you can’t eat noodles because it makes your poop hard. A part of me is scared of your ability to speak so openly with people you don’t know, but the bigger part of me is amazed at your great gift of charisma and charm.
I think you’re one of the friendliest people I’ve ever known. I pray that this is something I help nurture in you, something you hone as you grow.
You are generous beyond words. I wish I had a way to store all the tiny gifts you bestow on me every day. You bring me dandelions or milkweed flowers, or leaves, pinecones, feathers, shells, bits of interesting concrete, or pretty rocks or bark shaped in a certain way. I do love these little gifts, and they tickle me, but more than that I treasure the great spirit of love and generosity inside them.
I blinked and that little baby that snuggled into my neck, or grinned at me with sparkly brown eyes, is now a big boy who only resembles that baby. I catch a glimpse of him in you, in those beautiful brown eyes when you’re soft with love in a gift-giving, or laughing in mirth when they sparkle like diamonds. I still see you, as always, as my precious baby boy. But more now, all these gifts you have given me, all the lessons you have taught me, all the ways you have grown me up and made me a mother, you are a big boy on your way to manhood, and I’m so proud of you, so inspired by you, so deeply blessed that I not only know you, but that I have you in my life. You are a great gift to me, to your father, and all who know you, and the world. I know God has great plans for you, Son. I can see such great potential bubbling in you. You’ll do important things in this life.
I love you for all you are, and all you do.
Happy 5th birthday, my beautiful little man.
With all my love forever,
Mama
