The Berry Patch: January Birthday

The month of January is full of birthdays in my family. Today marks another one. Little J5 has graduated to J6. Six years ago today at 6:38am we welcomed him in to the world after a long 22 hours of labor. He didn't start life all that easily either. He was whisked away shortly after he was born due to "breathing difficulties" and he spent the next week in the NICU. My 10lb. 3oz. porker in his bassinet next to all the other preemie babies. The breathing difficulties evened out but it took about three days for his blood sugars to stabilize - my fault. As a diabetic it was important to keep my sugars as close to normal as possible since his pancreas isn't messed up like mine. I didn't do a great job with that obviously although it could have been far worse. Then he developed really bad jaundice so he spent a lot of time sunbathing & to top off the week they detected a heart murmur. Thankfully he did come home a week later & after a year of check-ups was given a clean bill of health on his heart too. No issues there now at all. And today the little rascal turned six.

photo taken by N8

So today my son...here are some things I absolutely adore about you....

1. Your smile. You have a smile that lights up your whole face - sometimes even your whole body! One never has to guess if you are happy or sad. You wear your emotions out there for all to see which is sometimes great and sometimes not so great. But your smile. I love it.

2. How well you & N8 get along. You are just shy of three years apart. A good span I think. You both share a room - have always shared a room. You like the same things but sometimes I think that may be just because you share a room. I love how you look up to him - most of the time anyway. I pray you will both continue to be really good friends.

3. How you absolutely love to eat raw carrots and broccoli. You love veggies and fruit (bananas and apples are favorites) & that just makes me so happy as your Mom. I'm not sure what I did differently with you than your brothers (since they wouldn't touch anything called a fruit or a veggie with a ten foot pole) but I'm glad you eat the way you do. It always makes me happy.

4. Your "stuffie love." You love stuffies. When Grammy recently took us all to Build-A-Bear you were able to add another stuffie to your menagerie. "Odie" has been tagging along with us almost everywhere. You have so many stuffies on your bed that you can barely fit on it yourself! You have little ones & big ones & you love them all very much.