The most amazing little boy.

Seriously.

I've been staring at this photo nearly all day.

I took it yesterday, as you were finishing up your donut covered with chocolate and sprinkles. After you'd spent more than an hour riding tricycles, playing in the "cornbox" and plucking pumpkins very determinedly from the patch.

I watch you in awe as you explore the world, and what do I get? Tears in my eyes. Tears that well up when I think of how incredibly lucky I am to be your Mommy.

I can tell you honestly, Devin, that I don't think a single, solitary day has passed by since Oct. 19, 2004, when I didn't have a wave of gratitude wash over me. When I didn't utter aloud to myself or to Daddy that you are just the sweetest, cutest, funniest boy I've ever, ever met. When I didn't want to smother you with kisses because I just can't figure out how else to express everything that bubbles up inside of me from minute to minute.

I look at this picture and I get so darn emotional.

Because it captures you to a "T"...that simple smile and those bright, clear eyes and that silly little cowlick poking up from your head. I see everything boiled down into one moment. All of it. All of the love and the joy and the silliness and the flashes of temper and the preciseness and the excitement. Everything about you. I see it there in that gaze you leveled at me as I clicked the shutter.

I'm a writer who often struggles with words. I want to tell people how I feel. But I want to tell them in a way that no one has ever expressed it before. Impossible dreams. But they're mine.

I want to tell you, my sweet, sweet boy, how you've changed my life. How you've infused my days with all of these different colors that I never knew existed before you snuggled your way into my life.

It's impossible to say everything I want to.

I just want you to know that when I look at this picture, I see my happiness. It's there in you. And around you. And about you. It's in those cheeks and that grin and that chipped front tooth. In the drool on your chin and the chocolate remnants on your lip. In the color of the barn and the shades of fall. It's in the way you sat on that bench, outside of the store, with your legs dangling, with the napkin placed carefully on your lap, your hand holding it in place, as you munched on that donut.

My happiness is in you, Devin.

My happiness is you.

Posted on October 16, 2006 09:22 PM