seventeen whole months.

my baby is no longer a baby. but i will forever call him my baby. even when he's 18 and going off to college. he will be my baby then. not in front of anyone. but when i drop that child off at college, and we drive home, i will cry the entire way home saying things like, "oh. my baby. my baby boy is at college. what will he do without me?"

and my husband will roll his eyes and tell me to calm down. but deep down he will want to cry too. because i know him. and he will.

okay. seventeen months.

i don't wish he were a baby. i don't want him to be helpless. like a month old or anything. because all of you who know me, know i was no good then. honestly. i wasn't. would i like for him to be six months old? no, not really. i just want time to slow down.

like maybe the days could be three times as long. well, not the entire day. but maybe that hour when clint gets home. maybe that hour would last three times as long. and we could all just sit around and look at each other.

crazy? maybe. but i just so want to get the most of out these days. these days that seem to fly by. i don't want to forget anything. i want to remember everything.

the way his hands can be so incredibly cold. and he will know it, and come up to me, and rub them on me. and giggle.

the way he smells after a bath. the way he points at every single animal in his bed when he wakes from a nap. because he really does want you to get all of them out and take them downstairs with you. i think he gets this from me. my stuffed animals were very, very real to me.

he loves to laugh. at anything. he thinks yoda is incredibly funny. he is extremely tickle-ish. i don't know how to spell that. he loves to look out the windows. he would rather be outside than anywhere else in the world. being in the bathtub is a close second place.

when he laughs, he throws his head back to laugh. and shows all his teeth. all 12 of them. he laughs more at night than any other time, i think. almost like he's so incredibly tired, everything seems funny to him. he smiles this little fake smile sometimes. and it's the cutest fake smile i have ever seen.

he loves to read. we've moved his books to the bottom shelf of the bookcases so that he doesn't pull all 100 off on his toes. we learn from experience around here. his favorite books include but certainly are not limited to: llama, llama red pajama; goodnight moon; the itsy bitsy spider; corduroy; my first 100 words.

he loves notecards. he loves to sit and "play" notecards. he makes a "vroom vroom" sound with his trucks or cars.

i probably hear him say, "hi dad!" ten times a day. and i will never, ever, ever get sick of that sound. he loves his daddy so much. and he knows that his daddy is the final say in this house. whenever he does something wrong, he always looks at clint...to see if he's being watched.

pratt, we love you. we love you more than you could possibly imagine. sometimes i catch us just looking at you. gazing at you. and i know your daddy is wondering the same thing: how did we make something so incredibly perfect?

oh, that's right. we didn't. God did. and so a shout out to the big Man is in order. we are so blessed He has loaned you to us.

happy seventeen months little man.
i love love love you.

mommy.