Where have the years gone???

17! How can it be that my baby boy is 17?!?!

It seems like just yesterday  he was a little bundle of blue wrapped up tight in his "booboo" (a blue blanket). He would carry that blanket everywhere. I think he was 4 or 5 before he finally gave it up. I miss those days so much.  This boy changed my life. He is the reason I became a mom. My first baby. My first love. 

Where has the last 17 years gone? I know I have not spent nearly enough time with this boy....well this young man now. Over the years I have had to watch him grow and change mostly via pictures on facebook and a few selected weeks through the year. I miss so much. I have spent the last 14 years regretting a lot 

decisions I have made. The one thing I will never regret is having this wonderful young man. Since the day he came into my life he has been a joy and a blessing to me. He is my heart and soul. I will never forget the moment I first laid eyes on him. He was a screaming little bundle of joy, with a pointy head...yup a pointy head, like a conehead! It was a long 14 hours of labor, and the little stink pot got stuck (thanks to a broken tail bone that healed wrong) and they had to pull him out with the suckey,  vacuum thingy. But, God, was it worth every minute of it. I was young, 18, and I thought for sure my life would never get any better than at that moment in time. 

  

Every year he has proven me wrong. Every year he amazes me with his strength, his love, his kindness and his never failing devotion to those he loves. I sometimes feel I don't deserve to be his mother. I have not been the best mother in the world to him. I have not been around when I should have been.  I have missed so many important days of. So many milestones in his life. I missed his first day of school, his first girlfriend, getting his drivers permit, the first day of his first job. I have missed most of his first. 

My baby has grown into quite a young man. He is handsome, smart, determined, loving, kind. He is a joy to be around. He makes my heart full and my life happy when he is with me. When he is away, a piece of me is missing. 

I hope he always knows how much he means to me. A day doesn't go by that I don't think about him. I know he might think otherwise, but it's true. I think of him every day. I wish I could turn back time and right all the wrongs, but I can't. All I can do I hope and pray that he knows in his heart that he is my son, he (and his siblings are) is my life. He is my reason for breathing, my reason to go on everyday, my reason to want to be a better person. 

Tristan I hope you know all these things. And most of all I hope that on this day, the day I gave birth to you, that you know that I love and cherish you so much. 

Happy birthday Boo!