28 months ago today

I have a confession for the blogosphere: I write a paper journal letter to James every month on his birthday. It's incredibly low-tech and un-hip of me, but the truth is that there's no way I can promise to be eloquent and/or funny on a particular day, especially every single month, so I'd rather get down all the cute fun things I want to always remember, and not worry about form or even coherency.

However, for the sake of the cute pictures I haven't posted yet, and because I just filled up one notebook and haven't yet started another, today I bring you a live version of James: 28 months.

Dear James,

Honey, today you are 28 months old, and although I say it every month, I have to say it again, because it's still true: I cannot BELIEVE how fast the time has flown. You are such a big grown-up kid now, feeding yourself your dinners with poise and aplomb, taking off your own clothes (at almost every opportunity), and chattering up a storm. You say more words in a day than I think I would say in a week or two, if it weren't for the fact that I have you to chat with all day long. You're incredibly verbal for a two-year-old boy, and your daddy and I LOVE how you like to make jokes with us. Tonight at dinner you grabbed your waist, slowly started inching your track pants over your bum and said: "Uh-oh, Daddy! Pants coming down!" (See above: removing clothes constantly.) (Note: your pants do tend to fall down a lot. For some reason, none of them are small enough in the waist. You run around so much!)

My favorite utterance of yours, EVER, is one I blog-posted about already this month: when you woke me up with, "MAMA! MAMA! I LOVE ME MY MAMA!" But I also love that you told me recently that you didn't want a pickle because "It tastes dirty, Mama." And that, because Grandma made cookies the first night we stayed here in her house with her, every night when she comes home you say, "More cookies, Grandma! Again, again, AGAIN!"

And that, of course, is our biggest news, our biggest change of this month. We've moved you halfway across the country again, and although I think I'll always feel a little guilty about that, you have handled it like a pro, mostly because you have "Grandma!" and "Aunt Sandra!" and "Charlie!" and "Max!" and "Grandma Jane!" and "Grandpa!" and "Orion! Merlin! Calypso Kitty!" and all of the family we are so lucky to be close to again, to love on you and tell you how wonderful you are.

I wish you could always remember the wonderful friends we've left behind. It breaks my heart that now you won't get to share growing older with Miss Olivia:

Or run around with the Enfingers:

Or play with Colby on our very own personal ginormous playground:

But perhaps the hardest loss for me is that of Tyler. (CRAP, COMPUTER ATE THE TY TY PICTURE AND NOW I CAN'T GET IT) I am seriously having baby withdrawal, and I feel in some ways like I went from a Mom of Two to a Mom of One again. This might foreshadow a certain future for you involving younger siblings, although not for awhile yet. But you ask all the time about Ty-Ty and Viva and Ayeesa and David and Angel and Trinny and Colby and everyone else I couldn't put pictures up of because of our computer's tenuous connection to the internet as well as my lack of free time. And I have to admit, I will be sad to see that stop, because I loved living in Raleigh, I love the friends we made and the great times we had, and I miss it with all my heart. But most of all I'm just excited, every day, to get to be your Mommy and spend my life with you and your Daddy.

You have delicious, fun, wonderful, exciting things in your future, and as always, I am honored and amazed that I get to be a part of that.

Thank you for being mine, James. I love you more than any words could say.

Mama