A sweet letter to my baby

Ok, so I read this letter on another blog (yes, I am addicted to blogs, I know) and it just encompassed everything that I am feeling as a mother of my last baby. Every day with him is just so sweet, but yet one day further away from the first day he was placed in my arms and one day closer to the day he will leave our home as a grown young man. Of course, I changed the names and a few details in the letter, but the feelings behind them are the same and as sincere as if I had written them myself. So to my dear sweet 4 month old baby boy.....

Dear sweet baby Nathan,

It was four months ago when you breathed your first breath in this world. Four months since the doctor held you up for us to see that yes, you really were a BOY!!! Your dad and I just could not believe it. Four months since he and I gazed into each other's eyes, beaming, crying. How proud we were that you were born, that you were our son. And how proud we are today.

Today you are four months old. It's impossible for me to think of your first few months and not have my eyes well up with tears. I love you, Nathan, and I am crying warm, sweet, happy tears as I celebrate the bittersweet fact that you are already growing up. That you are four months old. How I anticipated your first smile, and look forward to when you learn to say your big sisters' names, take your first step, play in the mud and learn to hide the Word of God in your heart.

But to be honest, if I could bottle you up right now, I would in a beat of my heart. That way I would be able to savor the sweet smell of your head forever. Feel your warm baby breath on my cheek as I rock you. Dust my fingertips across your bunny fluff hair. Feel a closeness to you like nothing else as I nurse you, nourishing you. Gaze forever into your eyes as you search for mine. Embrace your tiny, weightless body. Listen forever to your baby gurgles and sighs. Rock you as we gaze into the moonlight together, when the rest of our family sleeps, and it is just you and I. Sing quiet lullabies to you as your eyelids flutter and close. I love you so much, Nathan, and I am very sad that you won't be my baby forever.

Of course, you'll always be my baby in the way that Mackenzie and Avery are still my babies. In the way that I am still my mother's baby and in the way that she is still the baby of her parents. Grow up you must, grow up you will, and I will find joy and happiness in that journey. But I will cherish these fleeting baby moments with you, Nathan. I will enter your childhood with you with no regrets about your short baby days. I will leave no kiss unkissed and no cuddle uncuddled, no matter what the hour of day or night. I know too well now, my dear sweet third baby, how precious and momentary sweet infancy is. Since I cannot keep you little forever, I will make the sweetest, deepest memories that I can, now while you are little.

And when you are grown, Nathan, I will fondly remember your first few months, with warm, sweet, happy tears in my eyes once again.

All my love,

Mom