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Dear Isaiah,

Yesterday was your first day in a swing. I have a picture of it that completely captures who you are right now. The view is from the ground up, you are looking at me, mouth wide open in a smile, and your limbs are as free as a bird. It looks like you’re flying. The camera can only take pictures from the lens looking out, but if it could have taken a picture of the photographer as it took a picture of you, it would have captured an image of me, smiling just as widely at you.

Happy nine months, Angel.

You are THISCLOSE to crawling. Each day for the past two weeks, you have progressed a little further to independent transportation. You were on all fours, then you rocked back and forth like you were revving your engines, and then your right arm started going forward (followed by a bodily collapse), and then you started slowly moving backward.

This morning you took your first honest to goodness crawl move on my bed; at least, I call it a move because I think you moved about three inches. And you were smiling at me and looking at me the whole time. I’m actually quite surprised you weren’t scared by my high pitched squeals of delight. That moment – you crawling toward me with the happiest and purest look on your face – was beyond measure or price. At that very moment, there was no place I would rather be than in my clothing-infested bedroom with mismatching sheets because I haven’t done the laundry this week, and watching you glow with nine months of discovery, accomplishment, and life.

You are often complimented as handsome, adorable, cute, beautiful, but most of all “SO well-behaved,” and I have to agree. You rarely cry out of no reason, are perfectly happy with a stranger’s hold, and you smile at the long line at the post office. You’re a miracle.

Tito Victor is in town and the last time he saw you was when he came in from Los Angeles for your baptism. You were five weeks old then. It’s genuinely hard to fathom how these past nine months have sped by, but they only keep getting better.

Sure I’m getting cornier by the minute and wearing make-up is now as frequent of an occassion as the presidential State of the Union speech, but YOU, Isaiah, have brought unthinkable beauty and wonder to your father and I. We have no complaints. In our eyes, you are perfect in every way and God left nothing to the imagination when you were created. Every part of perfection God made visible in your face.

You nap right now as I right this, snuggled in your Winnie the Pooh “Adventure Suit” with the little red buttons that flash when you move. Your favorite musical toys – the carousel and laptop – are on the fritz because of overuse and drool bombs dropping onto the speakers.

But you adjust and turn your attention to something more mesmerizing, like an empty plastic Gatorade bottle. You are so easily satisfied.

You have been outside in the world longer than you were germinating in my belly and that fact turns my feelings over and over. It feels sometimes as if children are born to be adored and simultaneously break your heart with love. Everyday, you take one step closer toward me and your Dad and another toward your own little life unfolding in your own way.

You’re on your way, Isaiah, and I will always be there to watch you crawl toward your next achievement; be it an empty gatorade bottle, a degree, a job, a marriage, a partnership, a deal, an understanding, a peace, a creation, a job, a new home, a life.

I will always be there.

Love,
Mama