A year. Twelve months. Three hundred and sixty-five days.
An entire lifetime.
Why is it takes eons for time to the promise of a positive pregnancy test to come to fruition, but that newborn in your arms today? He’s a toddler tomorrow.
Jude’s first year has been beautiful, and magical, and still. I’ve had some babies whose first years passed in blurs of activity and busy, and I was left grasping for memories of those blessed days years down the road.
This was not one of them. I’ve soaked in every minute with this little man. I have had the absolute joy of being present, and I am grateful.
He is a delight. Oh, all babies are a delight. I’ll give you that. But this one? He is all smiles. And he makes us smile endlessly.
He is rounding the corner now, coming out of the very earliest shell of babyhood and trying on a few of the more toddler-like behaviors and attitudes. He gets mad, and yes, it is both adorable and passionate and easy to defeat. He climbs. He walks holding on with just one hand, not quite ready to try a solo flight. He laughs hysterically when he plays with his siblings.
In the midst of our days, I am still his everything, and that brings a kind of happiness to my soul that you understand, if you are a mother. I love that he reaches for Jack, that he is more than content on Mary Hannah’s hip. But the fact that I am the one into whose neck he burrows deepest, the one whose hand he likes draped over his back as his sleep …
So many moments in the past year have left me breathless with the realization that God is sovereign. So many instances have demanded that I stop and acknowledge His greatness, and His power. Big things, huge things, things that make or break the direction of a life, of a family.
And then, there is Jude. A small person, folded so perfectly into our family in the space created just for him. I look at Jude even on the most mundane days, and I am struck by the goodness of a God whose story reaches so far beyond what we can see. This little man will only ever know me as an older mother. By the time he comes into a place of real memories, of a firm understanding of his position here in this clan, well … he’ll likely be sharing me with his own nieces and nephews. I never planned this and yet, God did. He planted Jude here, now, for a purpose. And I have the ultimate gift of being his mother.
Happy first birthday, Jude. We love you, we love you, and we love you some more.