five on his fifth

1. I've never loved another boy as much as I love this one. It's true. I'll probably never have another boy to love so it'll stay true forever. He'll never love another mom as much as he loves me. I know it because he tells me almost every other day that he loves me six billion million trillion thousand billion trillion zillion billion thousand...and five. He's good at that. Just telling me out of the blue that he loves me. I love that about him. He can sense when I really need to hear it and he just tells me.

I'm thankful for all the love.


2. I love his eyes. When he was a baby they seemed so big and blue. Those eyelashes. They seemed to just go on and on. I'm sometimes jealous of his eyelashes. And then there's the eyebrows. I remember when they turned dark. He was about 3 months old. I love the way they curve up in the middle. He's a handsome boy. Some lucky lady is going to fall in love with his eyes some day.

I'm thankful he inherited some of his daddy's best features.



3. He likes to help, but it's got to be his idea. Requests to clean up toys are usually met with groans and moans and "I don't want to." We're working on that one. Nobody's perfect. I love that he sometimes comes into the kitchen, grabs a wipe out of the drawer and just starts scrubbing the floor or the wall or the fridge. He just gets the urge to clean I guess. I'm glad I keep the house just a titch on the grungy grimy side so he can have something to do when that urge hits. It's the least I can do.

I love having my very own mini maid.



4. He's funny. He has a sense of humor and he gets my sense of humor. Sometimes I feel like a lot of people don't (ok, a lot of the time I'm just not funny at all so maybe that's the problem). I think being funny is way better than being boring. He's a funny kid. I tease him and he just gets it. He teases me right back. And he's got a great laugh if you can get him to genuinely laugh about something. Like a really good belly laugh. I love it.

I'm thankful for his silly giggles and his lame knock-knock jokes.


5. He made me a mom. For all the years he made me wait for him and all the pain he caused on the way out (holy moly, that hurt like nothing else!), he was worth it. He's the one that helped me feel like I really earned that silly tomato plant they pass out at church on Mother's Day. Really, he saved me from the gloom, despair and agony of that Sunday in May. I find it very fitting that he was born so close to a holiday all about gratitude and counting blessings. We brought him home from the hospital the night before Thanksgiving.

I'm thankful for perfect timing and reminders of what's important.




As I tucked him into bed last night, I reminded him that when he woke up he'd be 5. Then I asked him how he felt about that. He said, "Good! How do you feel about it?" I told him that if he feels good about it then so do I.

And it's true.

I loved Baby Danny. I love that he taught me how important sleep is (and how frustrating it can be to not get enough of it thanks to such a tiny little person).

I loved Toddler Danny. I love that he made me so proud when he took his first steps and learned his abc's (and how fun it was to be the only person who really understood everything he said).

I'm really loving Big Kid Danny too. I love his imagination and his unwavering admiration of all things Star Wars (going on 2 years now and I don't see it fading any time soon).


Happy 5th birthday to my Danny Boy (or as Grandpa says, Danny Doodle).

We're lucky to have you in our family.


*all photos by the amazingly talented Christie