Get your tissues ready...

My baby is 11 months old today.  11 months ago, at this very moment, 9:58 a.m., I was in labor.  I remember being so tired and I remember being so nervous.  I wasn't sure how I would handle delivering a baby.  I wasn't sure how I would handle having a baby to take home and care for.  I couldn't wait to finally see his face and to finally not be pregnant anymore.  I had thought this day would never come and it was here... and now it's been 11 months.  In one short month, my baby's first year will be gone forever.  How did this happen??

I am amazed by him daily.  I am amazed by my love for him daily.  They say nobody's perfect but he is.  I couldn't find one single thing wrong with him if I tried.  He is the most perfect thing I have ever come across in my entire life.  I love his smile and how it lights up his entire face!  He gets so excited and bounces and his eyes crinkle up and you can see his crooked little baby teeth.  I love his baby babble and how he'll look at you when he's talking to you as though he is making perfect sense!  I love how he's started actually saying daddy.  I love how happy he is to see his daddy when he comes home from work.  I love how much fun he has when you chase him or tickle him.

On occasion, you read in the paper or online about someone that has lost a child and I cry every single time.  Just the mere thought of being in that person's situation breaks my heart.  I cannot even fathom going on without my boy.  11 months seems like such a long time when I think about having just had him... but it's also such a short time in someone's life.  I have had him with me only 11 months, as well as the 9 I was blessed to carry him inside me, out of my 26 years on earth and I couldn't go on even another day without him.  I do thank God every day for blessing me with a healthy baby and a happy baby.  I know that I am truly blessed to have been given the honor of caring for him and I pray that I am doing right by him.

I am so eager to see the boy, teenager and man he will become but it is coming too quickly.  I wonder if he'll like school and be a bookworm like me or if he'd rather play out in the snow like daddy.  I wonder whether he'll go to college and get a PhD unlike either of his parents.  I wonder if he'll be President of some company or even the country.  But I'll wait.  It is going so fast and I am trying to enjoy each minute I have with him.  I just cannot believe that I am now planning his first Christmas and birthday.  Last year at this time I never thought I'd be here already. 

I don't need another birthday or Christmas present as long as I live... I was given the most perfect, never to be topped in a million years present on January 9th of this year.  And I will celebrate that day every year as the greatest day of my life.  No other day can compare... not even close.