I was describing you the other day to someone who hasn’t met you yet and thought I should share with you my descriptions of the person you are right now, as you approach your 6th birthday.
Toby, you are my golden boy. I don’t know EXACTLY what “golden boy” means but it’s the
first thing I think of when I describe you. You shine at everything you do – whether it’s hockey,
soccer, reading or singing O Canada, you do it earnestly with a passion and
enthusiasm that makes you successful before you even begin.
You are a golden boy because you are innately GOOD. You aim to please and crave attention
for positive things. When you come
upstairs in the mornings and I am in the shower, you reach up on your tiptoes
and grab my towel and stand there patiently waiting for me so you can hand me
my towel the second I open the shower doors. It’s a nice game we play where I pretend that I didn’t see
AND hear you scuffling about trying to reach my towel or that I don’t see you
behind the cloudy glass shower doors.
But I do, every time, and let me tell you – it never ceases to melt my
heart when you do it.
You have always been obedient beyond your years. This Christmas Daddy and I heard
your little footsteps on the stairs at 6:45am. As I’m sure you know, we ask you to stay in your room until
7am. You were SOOO excited for
Christmas and to see if Santa had come that I wasn’t surprised that ANY little
kid would venture out 15 minutes earlier than expected. So we fully expected to see your shining
face in our room. We lay there
waiting and waiting and took turns guessing where you had gone…were you in
front of the tree? Were you very
quietly opening your presents? After what felt like an eternity, Daddy Finally
let me come out and you were nowhere to be found! Turns out you HAD been super
excited but after getting to the foot of the stairs your goodness prevailed and
you took only 2 steps up before forcing yourself to go back to bed and wait out
the painful 15 minutes before the allowed time. The self discipline that must have taken astounds me. And, just for the record, Bug, you BEAT
me. I only managed to make it till
6:55 before coming down to get you myself…
Your goodness and earnestness breaks my heart, Toby. I don’t know WHY exactly. I’m not sad. Nothing you do earnestly is ever done badly (well….one day
I’ll let you hear the voice recording of O Canda and you can draw your own
conclusions…) but one of the weird things about being a Mommy are the strange
ways it can mangle and magnify the simplest of emotions.
I sincerely hope that you will always only get the goodness
back out of life that you so eagerly give to it. But I know along the way you will meet people who won’t
always be excited to take the towel you so lovingly wait patiently to hand
them. And sometimes you will lose
soccer games and hockey games and the little voice that greets you after the
game won’t be my reassuring one but maybe one of a frustrated coach or an angry
teammate, or even the disappointment at the back of your own head. I wish I could protect you, my earnest
little golden boy, from ever having your eager spirit dampened by anything
beneath my innate, intense and unwavering love for you.
Perhaps the
hardest thing we do as parents are not those painful night feeds in the first
few months, or listening to them cry it out at 6 months, or fighting tooth and
nail at the dinner table to get them to eat their peas. Perhaps the hardest is yet to come,
when we set them free and leave their precious spirits to the mercy of others
we haven’t lovingly screened for them.
I’m glad it happens in pieces…and for tonight, Toby, I’m glad you’re
tucked in downstairs on your bear pillow, dreaming sweetly of how great it is
going to be to be 6. And
great it will be. I can’t wait to
see where life takes you next…
All my love
Mommy xo
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