a tree called life

I can not believe how the time has flown by Dylan. In the blink of an eye you have gone from a tiny, quiet little baby to a rough and tumble, hilarious little boy. Nine Months. You have been with us as long as it took to create you!!

Your Daddy and I look back to the beginning of you, the day we found out we were having a little baby, and we are in awe that so much time has passed. I remember day dreaming about what our lives would be like as a family, as parents.

We had talked endlessly about our excitement for our future together, but there was one night on a trip to Dallas that we sat outside on the patio of the Old Monk and mapped out our future. Ryan told me how excited he was to be a father, to create a tangible form of the love we share with each other. I will never forget that feeling that washed over me as I looked at his face and knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he devotedly meant it. We laughed, cried, and hugged, and it was that night that we decided we were ready - really ready to be parents.

Our journey began September 25th when we found out we were having you!! Being pregnant with you was one of the neatest experiences of my life. Carrying you with me, always being able to look down and know you were there with me - your heart beating with mine.

i carry your heart with me

i carry it in my heart

i am never without it

anywhere i go you go, my dear

Your Daddy and I loved so much to watch my belly grow. It meant you were growing big and strong, and that the time for us to meet you was coming closer! He and I prepared a nest just for you, we sang songs and read books to you. We took pictures each week, always in awe of how different I looked from the last. We watched you grow and we heard your healthy heart. We felt your tiny hiccups and your powerful kicks. After nine months of having you with me, even though we had no idea if you were a little boy or a little girl, I felt like I knew you. But it wasn't until June 11th that the story of our family truly began.

I know love. With a loving family and amazing friends, I have never second guessed love.
I love your Daddy so much. He is my rock, my strength and my soul mate. When I was a teenager in high school, even when our relationship was so fresh and new, I knew that I would marry him. He is an amazing husband, and an equally amazing father, and my best friend. He has shown me what true love feels like. But 9 months and 22 hours of labor later, when we saw your face, a love so foreign to what we knew flooded our hearts. Each month as you sprout an inch, gain a pound, grow a tooth, find your voice, learn your hands and feet or test the boundaries of your new body, you leave us in awe.

Thinking back to June of last year, it seems like an eternity ago. But then I look at you and how much you've changed, and I realize how fleeting each moment really is. We love you so much Dylan. Thank you for the most amazing eighteen months of our lives!

Happy 9 Month Birthday!

i carry your heart with me

i carry it in my heart

i am never without it

anywhere i go you go, my dear;

and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling

i fear no fate

for you are my fate, my sweet

i want no world

for beautiful you are my world, my true

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

here is the root of the root

and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;

which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart

i carry it in my heart

—-E. E. Cummings