This boy. This sweetest boy. Oh, he has my heart. 

His swift and constantly working mind.

His passion. 

His energy.

His trickster tendencies. 

His tender spots. 

His tickle spots. 

His brown brown eyes. 

His eagerness and excitement and hesitations all wrapped up together. 

The way he devours books, already. 

The fact that Old Mai is still utterly his best friend. 

The tenderness with which he treats his Quinn. 

And the comradeship with which he treats his Lulu. 

His hugs. 

His intense emotions. 

His stubbornness. 

His unflagging sense of right and order and rules.

His innate leadership abilities. 

The robots and the science and the creativity he has brought into our home. 

His relationship with his sweetest daddy. 

His aching and full heart when he copes with loss. 

The universe of possibility I see in him every single day. 

His reasoning and perception and problem-solving and critical thinking-- even when it makes him argue with me to no end. 

His deep well of emotion, even when it tears him up and he cannot see a bright side. 

His tentativeness when he feels he might not be good at something. 

His pure joy and pride when he is good at something. 

His bedtime prayers. 

His warm and strong and still-small hands. 

His big, not-as-stinky-as-I-tease-him feet.

The hair on his forehead I compulsively brush to the side whenever he's near me. 

His silliness.

His musicality. 

His beautiful, remarkable, as-yet-untested, pure, innocent, deep, wise, inspiring soul. 

Happy 6th, my boy. You are still mine, and not the world's, and I don't know how much longer I get to say that, and I will take every minute I can and hold it, and you, tightly. I love you so very much. 

♥

Mama

(Possibly my uttermost favorite photo of 2013, right there. Biased, I supposed, because there's only one kiddo in it... but my dearest Katie caught both of us so genuinely, when both of us are usually putting on our "camera face", that the truth of this shot takes my breath away. And that's my boy right there. My sweet Noah.)

ETA: Just put this together for Facebook. I love seeing years at one glance. Don't you?

Lucy Moment...

So I'll admit it. Though it's taken years of being humbled to get to this point: 

I might be a bit of a snorer. 

There, I said it. Harumph. Don't be a hater. 

Well, ANYway. This afternoon I got home from a mini-session back in the city, after a full-packed morning and lunchtime outing with the family, after an early wake-up this morning. And I was BEAT. The kids all piled on my bed while I tried to rest a bit, and we hung out as a gaggle of 5 for a while... but then I started closing my eyes, even amidst the chaos... and Noah, then Joe and Quinn, slowly migrated away from my dozey self and to another room. But Lucy stayed. She contentedly played with one of those wire/bead toys, tucked into bed right next to me, and I sunk down and dozed off entirely.

And every so often, Lucy would stop her quiet play and say, "Mommy! Mommy!" and I would rouse a bit, smile at her, see her smile back at me, and then I'd fall back asleep. She'd do it again a few minutes later. It finally started to process through my foggy brain that she was doing this BECAUSE I'D STARTED SNORING. Oh geez. I'd sink so deep that the logs would start to "get sawed", and she'd sweetly wake me to get me to stop. Multiple times. I think (and I may have just dreamed this part) she even imitated me one time. 

Mortifying. 

And also deadly cute. 

Sweet girl.... with her brutish snoring exhausted old mama. Contentedly keeping me company. But also keeping me in line.

♥