31-7-2008 - Dear Johnny

My mood while writing this blog: Happy and Blessed

Dear Johnny

So....I am writing letters for Johnny when he gets older! I thought I would share them with you all....I have already embrassed him posting "It's a Boy" U/s pictures...so why not.....

Dear Johnny,

I have decided to start writing you letters. Your buddy Swayer, his Mommy Holly started doing it for him. Mommy's good friend Laurel, that died when you were only 2 months old…we worked together to write letters to her kids. I think it will be great to share these with your wife while she is pregnant and you are expecting your own child. So…here is your first letter….

I'm sorry that you had a rough entrance into the world. You seemed to be doing well in my tummy, you were the only thing in my entire body that was doing well! I was so worried that you would be comforted by the sound of throwing up. Thank GOD Mommy can eat like a pig again! Every single day of my pregnancy with you, what got me through was thinking of you. Thinking of that precious moment where they place you on my chest right after you are born. It played over and over in my head, all day long, every single day. I didn't mind in my vision that you were covered in slime. I'm not a squimish person, and when you grow a baby…suddenly the miracle of birth is nothing more than a miracle. What is so ironic about everything is that we didn't get that moment. I have never been so scared in my entire life when you just couldn't come out and started to distress. After all that time trying to keep you in, who knew that you literally couldn't come out?!!? It must have been scary being frantically ripped out of my belly and taken away. I didn't even realize that I had a baby until the next day. I was so incredibly sad and asked Daddy to go get you and bring you to me. I felt like I was just given a baby and was holding him. Then, something happened. I knew it was you and I finally felt like you felt comforted being back with your mommy. It didn't happen the way I would have wanted for you or me…but sometimes that is life. Mommy always says that sometimes we have to go through hell before we can truly appreciate happiness. I went through hell and back for you and I'm not afraid to tell you that. There is nothing in this world that I wouldn't do for you.

I love you. Having you is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have wanted to be a Mommy since I knew what that meant. Here you came into my life and it was a million times better than I ever imagined. I may not have gotten that incredible moment that I always dreamed of…I got so much more. I love when I hear that you have woken up in the morning. I roll over and peep my head into your bassinet. You see me, and get this smile that is too big for your face. It lasts as well. It's like a million smiles all in one moment. As though you were smiling over and over. That. Right. There. Gives. Me. Reason. Reminds me every morning of how incredible this life is and how much I have. It's the first thing I see every morning and I couldn't ask for anything more. I know you won't always do that….but it is the memory of that, that I will always think of. Then you usually get hungry and start snorting. We call you piglet, but to your face. You snort when you are upset and Daddy and I laugh with you not at you.

Right now you are in you bassinet next to me while I type on the bed. You have been up for about 11 hours. Yep, that's right. You are one odd baby. You'll sleep all day and night one day and then the next you just won't sleep. Sometimes everyone around us cannot believe you are STILL sleeping and then others they wonder how in the heck Mommy ever gets ANYTHINF done. Currently you are staring at me moving your arms like you are doing some new dance. Mommy likes to shake her groove thing, so does Daddy…hope you will too.

You watched your first show with Mommy today. You have seen stingrays and Bora Bora (the best place on this planet) before…but not more than a couple minute. Tonight we got home late from work. You watch the Randy Pausch Primetime show with Mommy. I held you upright in the bathtub with me and you actually sat there in silence the whole time. I held you and quietly sobbed. I don't know if I have ever been so moved by any show before. I pray for you to be strong…but I also pray for you to feel empathy, DEEP empathy for people that you have never met. You just looked at me with a new look that I have never seen. I hope I did not scare you. It was so important that I watch that show. I had a date with my friend Elle to watch the show…even though she lives in Chicago. Anyhow, Randy Pausch was probably one of the most influential men in my life. If they still have youtube, look up his videos. He was an incredible professor and cancer survivor. He lost his battle with cancer this week and he was a survivor. I have learned more from him than I have in all my years of school. I hope you will too, he had some great lessons and he lived life as we all should. One thing he said is that beyond anything you can have in life, hope for love. He waited 39 years to get married…because he needed to find someone whose needs came before his own. That is love. I hope more than anything in this life that you find that. I think that the greatest thing you will ever learn, is simply to love and be loved in return.

Daddy and I aren't perfect. Love is not perfect. But, you can be perfect for each other, which we are. I pray that you find a love like we have, a love that most people spend a lifetime searching for and rarely find and understand the meaning of SHIMLY.

Ok…that's all for tonight…more soon.

Mommy Loves you-

P.S. It's now morning...I just sang "Let it Be" to you like I did while you were in my belly. The Brooke White version....you smiled the entire time. I walked down the aisle at my wedding to a recording of me singing to your Daddy. It was one of the best moments in my whole entire life. Singing to you just now was the other best moment of my life. I sang you the entire song...you just looked at me with wonder, innocence and hope. I thought maybe you were just happy because you were pooping, but that wasn't it....:)