thanks....

for this....and this....and this....

they just happen to be my favorite things....

a little bit of snow...

billy and i may or may not have snuck out of the house after camden's bedtime tonight...to build a little friend...and throw a few snowballs...

and are now safe inside, sipping hot cocoa...because winter is here baby!

a big hat to fill...

he may have a little bit of growing room before he can officially say..."it's like an orange on a toothpick..." which may be his dad's favorite line from a certain movie...as well as our pediatrician's...oh you should hear the conversations that they get into...ridiculous...yes.p.s...don't mind that the lower half of his face is completely stained by baby food...and consequently a totally separate shade than his forehead...suggestions?

clarity....

there are these moments with camden, when he looks straight into my eyes, and it takes my breath away...because in that glimmer i see complete coherence, like the world is so clear to him...like he knows so much more than i do...and he stares straight into my soul...these moments come when that little boy of mine is tired and calm and while cuddling i tickle his face and his arms, and he reaches up to mine and he stares, right through me...and he gives a little side smile until his perfect eyelids close and he is gone. these are the moments when you see heavenly father's hand in a child.

lucky...

last night camden threw a bedtime tantrum that could have ended the world...it wasn't his first...at that age i suppose. i am learning patience i guess...but i get frustrated...mostly with myself and my determination not to just give in. so we rock, and he cries in his crib and we try the bottle...and it isn't because he isn't tired...it is because he wants to go to bed on his own terms...even if that means that he is fussy for two straight hours...so we are pushing through this "phase"...and having a sick kiddo for the last 4 days didn't help things. after an hour of wailing and thrashing that little body finally gave in...at 11pm. needless to say, i was done with the day and stormed into my bedroom very dramatic like and threw the covers over my pounding head...but then i felt a hand on my shoulder and a husband whispering: "it will be okay"...and it made me feel a little better. so, feeling bad for my mean mommy behavior i went into check on that little man of mine...and i found his daddy leaning over his crib, kissing him goodnight. and i realized how lucky i am to have this family of mine...tantrums and all.

the waiting game...

there are days that i feel as though this is my life now...i am constantly waiting...and when the day comes that things finally happen, i say hooray, i clap my hands and i move onto the next phase...and i find myself giving away the now. i was guilty of this long before i had my son...but it is more and more evident now that i have camden. we push, and push...until something happens and i see a new spark and we celebrate for all of 10 minutes and we move forward. which is the thing of progression and i am not discounting the necessity of such things, but sometimes i feel as if waiting is my entire life...and i don't want to look back at the end of things and see that i wasted 95% of my now's waiting for the next's. but i am torn...because, as a mother, there is this instinctual drive to push...to push forward...to push that little one i have been so entrusted with to reach his full potential...and so between the therapy appointments and the doctors we are pushing...because what if he doesn't make it to a goal? will i look back and say i should have done more? when i run out of the house to do errands or grab lunch, or try to get some free time, am i wasting precious time with camden? am i giving him all that i have? and when he leaves behind the "typical" time frame to accomplish things and moves into delayed stages i ask myself...am i enough? and i struggle with this at times...and i tell myself that it is up to that little man of mine...but how do you balance it? how do you balance reveling in the now and the pushing forward to the next?

...

i haven't quite figured it out yet...but when i hear that voice in my head questioning whether or not we did enough therapy today, i stop myself...and i think...today love is enough.

sometimes...

i have moments when i feel like this too...

photo courtesy of grandma caldwell

letters...

when i was pregnant with camden i wrote him a series of letters...i started it out as letters to all of my children, but it eventually turned into intimate love notes just for him. the letters range in size and topic...some factual, some purely love and as i continue to add to them i find myself reflecting on the previous letters...the ones that i wrote before i knew camden...before we named him, before we could look into his deep blue eyes, before i knew he had his daddy's lips, before i held him for the first time...these letters were full of anticipation for future events, full of hope and expectations...i thought of these letters the day the words down syndrome first entered our vocabulary...i wondered if i would still give them to him, they didn't feel like his letters for a moment in time...i felt like they were meant for a different baby, one that didn't make it...

...

i looked back over them about two months after camden was born...i read through each and every one of them...i cried those mourning tears again...i felt the loss again...until i got to the last letter...the one that i feared reading most of all because it spoke of expectations and parenting and i wasn't sure i could keep my dreams anymore...but i read it anyway, and i noticed something...that letter was for camden, and no other baby...i hadn't even understood the words that i had written until this little boy fell into my arms...that letter made more sense now than it ever had before...

" So I was thinking today….about parenting….and being the right kind of parent to you. I am bringing this up so that you understand what type of parent I wanted to be from the start….before your cute little hands and toes cloud my better judgment and I want to keep them in impeccable condition forever….I know that being a parent will be the hardest thing I will ever do…and the most fulfilling…and I want to be the one that lets you bump into things here and there…because sometimes you need to…and sometimes reality isn’t always so easy to deal with…so dealing with it is the only way that you learn. I just keep thinking of Heavenly Father and the type of parent that he is…and being that freedom of choice is what this whole plan thing is all about , I can’t help but note that sometimes he lets me fall down….and so I should let you. because that’s really what a parent is for….not to catch you…but to pick you back up. So you might be reading this and laugh a little to yourself because I am sure at times I will want to jump in and save you and I will let my better judgment falter, but know that this was my intention for you….that I tried to be the best parent I could….that I put thought into it….but I know I’m only human, and well, you know what that means. And if at some point in the future I actually do my job….I am sorry that I allowed the world, or even yourself, to hurt you…I am sorry you had to understand and feel the pain of trial…but know it was not because I didn’t love you….it was because I did."

because now more than ever i am going to want to shield that little boy of mine, i am going to want to protect him from the world, only i know it isn't fair...and that the world needs him as much as he needs the world...and so at some unforeseen point in time...i am going to have to step back, even though it will be the hardest thing i have ever done...

"You, and your future siblings, are here for me….to teach me to love more fully, to be more compassionate to others, to show more charity, to help rid myself of pride, selfishness and fear. You are my greatest blessing in this life….you are here to help me to become the person that I was meant to become here on this earth, because no one else could ever teach me what you are here to teach me. You are not our trial, you are our reward."