Oh My Hip

Dear Hip,

These past few months have been ridiculous haven't they? Even though I have not lost sight of how hard moving has been for you I have been distracted by my own hardships to be the mother of my dreams to you. How would you guess that you light up my life by the way I have been acting? You do.

You are perfect in all of your two and a half years. You are a marvel to me, always.

There are a things you should know about yourself on this day:

You are kind-hearted. Yesterday at the doctor's office you heard a baby crying and you knew the baby was distressed. You told me, "Mom, go get that baby. He's hurt." Since that was not possible I told you stories to distract you, the crying really hurt your heart and I could tell you were worried. Your brother cries when he is hungry, when he is tired, when he needs a diaper change, and when he is bored; you ignore it unless you can tell he is hurting. When that happens you abandon what you are doing and begin pacing around him and me with urgency saying, "Mom PT is crying, Mom PT is crying, MOM PT IS CRYING! Go get him!"

Obviously, you love your brother. You like to talk to him, play with him, touch him, show him interesting things (today it was a balloon), help me bath and change him, read to him, and teach him things. Whenever I ask PT if it is time for tummy time you say, "Tummy time?! I love tummy time!" and you lay next to PT offering him encouragement and showing him what to do. Everyday you talk to him, "Mom, I want to talk to PT for a minute, okay?" You are patient when he interrupts you and your time with me. You make sure to put his pacifier in a place that I can always find it.

You love your daddy. You would rather spend time with your daddy than do anything else, except maybe go to Costco (and not just for gasoline). You are content to sit on his lap watching a movie while he studies. You like to play with his IPhone and you access the games you want all on your own. You also like to pull up the pictures on his phone and scroll through them. Sometimes you will show me the pictures you like the most, and sometimes the pictures you see will remind you and you will tell me the story of the picture. The other day a lady came to our house and she pointed to my phone and asked you what you do with it. You said, "Take pictures." I loved that.

Simple things make you happy. You still love to shop with me. I love to shop with you and am sad that I've been going grocery shopping late at night, lately, when Daddy can watch PT and you are already in bed. But the other day we were able to go to Walmart, just the two of us like old times, and it was so fun. We stopped at all of the toys you wanted to see and I watched you pull the levers and push the buttons. You asked me for all of them and my heart broke that I wasn't able to buy them for you. You settled on a $.75 Hot Wheels race car that hasn't left your side since.

Friday is garbage day on our street and this makes Friday mornings happy. You are also excited to see the street sweepers clean the street on Thursdays and the various delivery trucks that you see pass our front windows. You can point out a UPS truck versus a FedEx truck.

You love your friends. You tell me all of the time, and you told Dane you love him on Thanksgiving. The other day when the kids, whom you could see through the front window, went inside before we could get ready to go outside you cried tears of sadness for a really long time. I didn't know what to do, so I held you and remembered how much it hurts to be left out. You ask me about once a week if we can make treats for you friends.

You are excited. You get excited about everything which makes life for those around you so much more fun. You will even yell it, "I'm excited!"

You are super smart. You talk to me about things other kids your age are clueless about. You understood Thanksgiving is a time to gather with friends and feast. Because you love to eat, and you love your friends, you looked forward to this all week and gave me a list of the friends you wanted to be there, which were all of them. You also are interested in real-life situations so much more than pretend. You would rather cook with me than pretend to cook. You would rather fix the car with daddy than pretend to fix it. You would rather ride a real tractor or sit on a real fire truck than pretend. When you do pretend, it is just as awesome as doing real-life things with you--I love to hear you talking for your cars and imagining what is going on with them.

You are energetic. When we go to Toddler Time at the library, you and your best friend are the most active and enthusiastic kids there. You are able to pay attention to the story too, though, because you love books. Even when you are disruptive I know the librarian adores you because your name is the only one she remembers and she always takes special notice to talk to you and I. You recently taught yourself to jump on the furniture and the beds and even though part of me wants to tell you to stop it, the other part of me wants to jump with you.

I am working really hard to manage myself better so you can be happier. I think that despite all of the new fun things we do you are very sad to have left all of the fun things we used to do in Utah. I also know you miss your grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, roxy, and the gym a lot. This move has been really hard on you and no little boy should have to go through all of the things you have had to go through these past few months.

On this day I want you to know that I am excited about watching you grow up. You have such special capabilities and qualities and it will be a cool to see what you do with them as you get older. I hope you know you decide what you are and what you will be and I will support you in figuring that out.

Love,

Mommy, Momma, Mom