My Baby Blues

Joshua James, my first born. My first child. My very first precious gift from God. What I did to deserve him I will never know. He truly is everything I expected in a boy and much, much more. Today he turns 5 years old. I'm just in awe of where the time went and why I'm so sad to see him grow up. The older he becomes, the more charming he is. Why would I not be thrilled about seeing him at 25? And I am, but I am so sad. I want my first baby boy to stay small and innocent forever. It's selfish, but I want him to be mine and mine only. It's a love to deep and special to give to anyone else. Even though I hear the whisper.....No, he belongs to me. The One who created him. The One who mapped out his life. And I Love him just as much, but more. Joshua is just so special, for more reasons than to list in a blog, but I'm going to give it the ol' college try. First, he was the typical "book" baby. He met each mile stone just like the books recorded. He slept perfectly, had a huge appetite, sucked his thumb, didn't like loud noise, loved to be rocked....with white noise, in a dark bathroom. Okay maybe that wasn't by the books. He walked at the right time, talked on cue, had a strong love for books and music. To me, especially looking back, he was/is so unique. When Joshua was told he was going to be a big brother, it didn't phase him. He tried to test the waters, but really quickly realized that George was here to stay. And after that, he was fine. He accepted George and turns out, he hasn't found a companion more accommodating or willing to wrestle on demand. As Joshy grew bigger, so did his obsessions. It started with the beach. Starting at the ripe age of 6 months, Josh and I played at the beach. It didn't take long for Jamie and I to notice how interesting it was that he seemed to study the waves. Even now, he spends most of his time watching the waves, commenting on the change of tides, and just watching. Next was the flag. He adored the American flag. He could not of made his very conservative father more proud. He pointed each one out, sang the Star Spangled Banner by heart at 2 1/2, knew the pledge of allegiance verse by verse, the Fourth of July was his favorite holiday. He adored flags. Next came trains. Not as long a love as flags, nonetheless, trains became pretty cool. And so what did Jamie and I do? We introduced him to Thomas. We forked out the money for each Thomas the Train character, even contemplated a train table, only to watch the trend shift to cars. The Disney movie changed our family. Josh became a fan at 3 and early 4 of Lightening McQueen, Mater, The King, Chicks Hicks and the rest of the other Cars characters. Once again we fed his love by buying his favorite cars and watching he and George replay the movie on our living room floor. Racing the cars back and forth. Jamie recognized this as an opportunity to introduce Josh into his own weird love for Nascar. Joshua ate it up. He loved the real life aspect of Nascar. He studied the cars, listened to the commentary and mimicked it once again on our living room floor.Only this time, he created his race track on our braided rug so he could pretend it was a real track. Nascar, as hard as this is to admit, is pretty popular in our home. So as I've watched my first born son grow from a chubby baby into a little boy, birthday themes have changed, clothes sizes have gotten bigger, song choices more mature and language more grown up but what has stayed the same is his most precious disposition when he is trying to be sweet or funny. the way he uses his "det" to rub his nose and mouth while sucking his thumb. The way he holds his cup to the side when he drinks. How he uses his hands to describe something really important he is trying to say. The way he still thinks Jamie and I are the most incredible people on the planet. His love for his brother and now his baby sister. And his sweet baby blues. I can't imagine what I did to deserve this precious little gift 5 years ago today. I pray that as he continues to grow that he will become a boy, a teenager, a young man that loves God, loves his family and experiences life to the fullest. I am so excited to see what the next five years has in store for Joshua.