The Strongest of Cords

A little boy and his cat--February 2008.
Same boy, same cat--November 2009
Some mothers may fall in love with their babies at first sight. But I didn't. Three short years ago tonight, it was impossible for me to imagine how large a piece of my heart I was about to give away.

In the delivery room, I remember thinking my firstborn son, Wyatt, was beautiful. I remember swelling with happiness as the nurses lay his swollen, pink-faced, swaddled body in my arms for the first time. I remember feeling an irrational first-time mother's possessiveness when someone else held him along with an equally irrational desire to protect him against everyone and everything.

Later, I also remember thinking I might break him, he was so tiny...and that if he didn't stop crying for hours on end and start sleeping for more than two hours at a time, I might have a breakdown.

Those first few days and weeks, my heart did not long to be near him. Love, in the truest dictionary sense, just wasn't an emotion I felt for this squalling figure who demanded everything but was satisfied with nothing.

And yet, my love for him grew each time I held him, each trial we overcame, each milestone we passed--together...from his first words to the paragraphs he rattles off today. From the leaky diapers to the success of being potty trained. From crying each time I left him anywhere to bouncing into a familiar place and saying, "Bye mommy."

Like a tiny morning glory's seed sprouts in the moonlight and its wiry tendrils creep ever so slowly, winding around the fencepost. The plant grows too slow for the naked eye to observe until the entire fence row is seemingly overnight entangled in forever cords of green and brightly colored blossoms that burst open wide with the dawn of each new day.

What once was a single, delicate tendril, easily broken, is now a mass of strong vines unable to easily be separated from the fence.

That is my love for Wyatt.

I don't remember when I started loving him. I just know I do.

Thank you God for three years of being able to love this little boy. On this his third birthday, my prayer is for many more years of love and laughter to come and for him to learn to love my Jesus as I do.