This Day in History

TOday, February 18, is a day of history in my family. Sixteen years ago, my son was born. My first child, my oldest child. I don't understand how 16 years could go by so very fast. He is almost a man, he is almost on his own. I can only hope that we did the right thing by him, that we taught him right from wrong. We can only hope that he took those lessons and realized and continue to realize the important things in life. Life flashes by so very fast. It seems as if it was yesterday that I was riding in the back seat of the car watching him sleep on the way home from the hospital, and poof.......he is dating girls! I miss the chubby little hands holding mine, the laughter that infected a whole room, giggling over nothing. I used to love it when he would climb up into my lap and just hug me. He became so mature, so big so fast. He was so independent in a very short time. I can still see him sleeping in his crib, an now he sleeps in a bed. All too soon, he won't be sleeping in that bed, he will have moved out, and on his own. Then I will really miss him. I just regret that I didn't have the time with him that I did with Cassidy, that life was so stressful and so crazy and I had to go back to work too soon when he was an infant. He was such a happy baby, a loving toddler and an easy child. Now he is a teenager. It can be rough at times, but all in all he is a well mannered child, and an appreciative child. He can be stubborn, but hopefully that will make him a sucessful person, a stick to your guns kind of guy. I really can't call him a boy anymore, but he isn't quite a man. He sounds like a man, looks like a man, shaves like a man, but he isn't quite a man. SOmetimes, just sometimes, I see the dancing toddler, the not quite one year old eating a pickle, or the little boy who loved Thomas the Tank Engine, Big Bird and Batman. He is in the boy/man that stands before me, sometimes I see that little boy, in his eyes, his smile or just in the way he holds his head. Most of the time though, I rarely see that little boy. I look all of the time, I truly miss him. He grew up too fast, way too fast.

So, in closing, I say, "Happy Birthday, Patrick!"