Happy Birthday

Dear Kaleb,

One year ago, this night (Jan. 28), just about this time, I felt the first pains that would bring you into this world. Your sisters and I had just finished watching Charlotte's Web and Sara M.'s song, "Ordinary Miracle" was rolling with the credits. And I was thinking that you were just that: an ordinary miracle.  Something so common to our world--a baby--and yet so miraculous, so new. I put my arms around my belly and held you. The first signs you would emerge into this world sooner than we had planned were already present--but I just thought I had eaten too much pizza.  I had eaten too much pizza. Then later, on the phone with Jodi, I kept interrupting our chat with, "Hold on a minute, I have to get on the floor for this one. But I really don't think this is real labor. So don't worry." Silly me.  Two weeks early on a night when Daddy was working was not in my plans for you, for us. But then, nothing about your arrival was in my plans.

Thank goodness.

If your life had begun on the trajectory I had imagined for you, we would never have had the chance to love you.  YOU.

This afternoon we sang to you and to Daddy and to Audyn (though your birthday isn't until tomorrow and Audyn's next week) and let you eat cake. All. By. Your. Self.  We didn't think you knew how to feed yourself yet--we just hadn't put Martha Stewart's butter-cream frosted, yellow cake in front of you. You ate it with gusto, and it was pure pleasure to watch you shove handfuls of cake and frosting goo in your mouth and on your face.  And you knew. You knew you were doing something big. For the first time. I could see it in your face.

And while I stood there watching you dive into your cake, I thought about how just one year ago, my eyes were wet for a different reason.  I was so sad. Not because I didn't want you, but because I was so afraid of what I didn't yet understand.  And I was angry that your life would be hard for you, and maybe even a little angry that it would be different for us.

But the different is (not easy) OK, even good.  Sometimes I still get sad, because I see how hard you have to work to do the simplest things. And I see how people will sometimes stare at you, trying to figure you out; or how they make stupid assumptions that suggest your differences define you.  Your differences do not define you. You are not a Down's baby, a category. You are Kaleb Matthew, our boy, as unique and complex and lovely as any child could be.

I see how you love people (not because you're simple or uncomplicated), but because you're smart and intuitive. I love how you study faces so intently like you might catch a glimpse inside the person you're studying, how you pick up on subtleties of mood and emotion even when no words pass between, how you love when a stranger makes eye contact and shares a smile.  I see how you take pleasure in the things you work so hard to achieve. How you rolled, scooted, babbled, sat, crawled just as quickly as our other babies. And now I find you standing, holding on to the stairs, a box, a cushion, a chair for support. Proud of yourself. Full of your accomplishments. Already moving away from me. I see how you love all of us, how you close your eyes and lower your head to tuck it under your sisters' necks when they lean in for a hug. How you hold our faces between your hands and look right at us with those beautiful blues. How you give big, slobbery kisses to anyone who comes close enough. How you give. Big.

You are gentle and kind. You are determined and strong. You are funny and sweet. You are small but mighty. You fill our house and our hearts. And you are teaching us what love is, what joy is, and how to let go of the plans we have made for ourselves, because this life, this new life with you in it, is rich and lovely and good.

I couldn't be happier to have spent this last year with you, though I'm glad the hard parts of it are behind us.  And I am excited for the YOU you are becoming.  And I am thankful that you are ours and we are writing our story with you in it. Because after all, the best stories can be the ones with unexpected twists and turns along the way.

Oh how we love you my good, sweet son. Happy 1st Birthday.