My dearest Austin,
I said this to your brother four years ago, and it still stands true today: I can’t believe you’re a full year old! I remember so clearly the day that I found out we were pregnant with you. The moment I saw the word “pregnant” on the pee stick, the way my heart was pounding as I walked into the living room to show Daddy and Wes. The overwhelming excitement and fear and ALL the emotions – but especially the joy. We wanted you, we tried for you, and God gave you to us. I’m the luckiest woman in the world!
Austin, you came into this world with the funniest little attitude, and that has just continued to grow into the most hilarious personality. Your favorite thing right now is to smile at someone, then bury your head in my shoulder and wiggle with a huge smile on your face. You wave at anyone and everyone we see in any store we go into. You even do the awkward baby staring thing where you won’t stop looking at someone til they look back at you. I secretly think it’s hilarious – and you never fail to get a smile out of them once they see your precious face.
It’s been so fun to see how you and your brother are alike and different. You, like he was/is, a fairly laid back baby until you decide you don’t want to be. You’re a little stubborn and headstrong, which I believe will lead you to do great things as long as you know how to harness it as you grow up. You make me laugh so hard at how much of a stinker you are. You already know what you are and are not supposed to do (like turning on the bathtub when it’s filled with stuff) and you usually pick the latter. This won’t be cute forever, but with those cheeks and that crinkly-nosed smile? Well, you can get away with a lot. For now 🙂
You’re not walking yet, but you want to SO BADLY. Just in the past two weeks you’ve gone from your gimpy army crawl to a funny lopsided hands-and-knees crawl to cruising on every surface imaginable. You won’t take more than a step in between mommy and daddy yet, but you really love pushing a kids’ IKEA chair around like a walking toy. Hey, it’s free and it works – we’ll chalk it up to ingenuity!
You love almost every food out there except sweet potatoes and pasta, which means I don’t know if there’s a lick of my DNA in your body. Except for the fact that you love every other food, so I guess there’s at least a little bit of me in there 🙂 Your particular favorites are cheese, butter toast, blueberries, and broccoli. You don’t want to even try to drink water or use a sippy cup, so I have a feeling there’s a battle of the wills in our future – but you look so dang cute drinking from a bottle I think it’ll be OK for a little while longer.
Baby Austin, it really does feel like yesterday that you came into this world with your sweet cries and healthy body. It still hardly feels real that I got to hold you in my arms right after birth, that I got to be there for your first bath, that we introduced you to your big brother. I remember the moment we told Grandpa that we named you after him – he was so honored and proud. You couldn’t have picked a better man to be named after.
Austin, I pray the same thing for you and your brother every day – that you would know the Lord and his love for you, and that your identity would be found in Him and Him alone. That you guys would both be able to get past the fact that Daddy and I will mess up and fail and still be able to see your heavenly Father’s incomprehensible, radical love for you because you were created by Him. We will mess up big time, we will have to apologize a lot, we will be unacceptable examples of perfect love – but that love is yours in Christ and he will always be with you.
Baby, you are precious to us. You are beyond beautiful. You are cherished. And I thank God every day that I get to be your mommy.
I love you sweet boy,
Mommy
Beautifully written! Love it. Proud to be his grandma and grandpa.
Awwwwww!