Happy Birthday!

It's amazing what happens in a year. 3 years ago around this time I worried that Mike and I would never have kids of our own. We even started the process for foster care but it wasn't for us. If I'm being honest I didn't want someone coming in an evaluating my house.2 years ago around this time I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of my first child (big difference huh!). And last year at this time I was excited about having Conor's first birthday.

This is when I fell in love

Going into his first birthday I was excited about my baby turning one and looking forward to watching him become more independent. I knew the next year we would be faced with challenges as toddlerhood is both a wonderful and trying time. I knew this year would be hard and I was right. I was just expecting a different kind of hard.

First birthday party

It was shortly after this time last year that I acknowledged what I had been rationalizing all along. Conor was delayed. Funny how effective rationalizing can be. After I admitted this to myself I was worried (and frustrated that I let his 1 year appointment go by). This slowly went from general worry, to extreme worry, to being put at ease only to go back to extreme worry and general worry again. But as the year wraps up I'm happy to say I generally feel back at ease.(Thanks to very helpful doctors and wonderful therapists. I have always believed in early intervention. But seeing my son progress shows me what a wonderful use of money!) And we sail into Conor's second birthday with toddler tantrums, party planning, nostalgia and a little sadness at how quickly my boy is growing up.

Lately I've been feeling extremely blessed. This feeling is particularly strong on those mornings where I get to start my day with some cuddles from Conor. He's been pretty cuddly lately. And when I'm sitting in bed with time to spare cuddled up to that boy I can't help but feel blessed to have him in my life. There's so many people who struggle and are never able to have kids or suffer the loss of a child. So I'll take my time to feel lucky to have those moments with my beautiful son.

So Happy 2nd Birthday to my sweet baby boy! I love you!

Thank you!

Last week this is the scene that played out in my house.

I asked Conor if he wanted milk. He did. So he signed "milk" and made his attempt to say milk. So I got him a cup and gave him his milk. As I handed him the cup he says "thank you" and toddled off. I smiled to myself and reflected on how proud I was of him. First I was proud that he said a spontaneous word as this is what I'm hoping he starts doing more. I was then struck with pride at the thought that Conor uses few words spontaneously so the fact that he manages such good manners unprompted is pretty impressive. I sat there proud of my son.

It took a few minutes but as I sat with such pride I realized something. Here I am so proud of my son and yet he doesn't even know it! Too often I think this happens. I see kids all the time who complain because their parents never notice when they do something good. And while I don't believe it's entirely true. I wonder how many opportunities do we as parents miss because we don't tell them when we have these moments. Kids need to hear these things. And I think parents get frustrated when their kids say they don't notice. One reason is that kids tend not to notice when we acknowledge their efforts. Another reason is that often when we acknowledge that we are proud of kids its not at a time when they hear us and we assume they know.

And the thing is when we tell children that we are proud of something specific they have done and we are genuinely proud it can have such a profound effect. I'm sure my mom told me she was proud of lots of things. But I remember numerous times when my mom would tell me how proud she was that the elementary school special education teacher told her I was so good with the kids in her class. My mom talked about this all the time with me. And there's no way I can think this wasn't a huge influence in the career path I choose for myself. I actually often thought about that as I worked towards my career.

Telling our children that we are proud of them really can help shape who they become in a small way. But it needs to be genuine and it needs to be frequent. So we need to find every chance we can to tell our kids when we are proud of them and why. And we need to mean it! Because if they don't have exponentially more incidents of you saying you're proud of them then they might miss it.

Don't worry once I realized that I was merely reflecting on my pride and not telling him I immediately gave him a big hug, And then I told him how happy I was that he has such great manners! And I am proud to be raising a boy with good manners!

And a big kudos as well to my mom for doing this so well!
(Adults can benefit from positive feedback as well ya know!)