To my little man, almost three,

I know I will be saying this next year, and the next, but every night when I go to bed I think you are at the sweetest, most amazing stage of your life.

And every morning I wake up to something new and wonderful.

How lonely my life must have been before you came along with your morning conversations.  How boring without the make-believe of your world, where I am the princess to your prince, the Elmo to your Baby David, the Tasha to your Pablo.  Your life is a wonderland of imagination that I can only half-remember from my own childhood.  It swirls in cartoon color around us every morning as we eat our breakfast and brush our teeth.

How jaded I was before you showed me the renewed pleasure of being simply nice.  Of sharing spontaneously and joyously. How sad I would be without you to run through the house, melting chocolate grasped in each warm fist, untouched until you find me to share the sweet treasure.  “Here Mommy, this is for you..” always precedes the greatest gifts I have ever received; gifts straight from an open, honest heart, uncomplicated and pure.

How much of  life must have passed by me unnoticed before your insistence at the world’s wonders slowed me down to crouch to see a beetle’s crawl,  trace the path of a newly falling leaf, watch gentle breathing of a spiderweb in the window.  And those moments where you have grasped my face in both hands, looked in my eyes and just broke out in a smile of joy from ear to ear have enlarged my heart to bursting.  Is that what real joy is all about? I had forgotten.

With your wide brush of childhood you have drenched my days in light and song.

I love you, my son.

And I love the life you have given me.