Little is getting bigger :-(

When Liam was an infant, it became fairly clear that he was going to be a bit delayed. There was never anything alarming about his development except that he just didn't mature as fast as our other kids did. For a long time, it was very frustrating. I WANTED him to crawl at 6-7 months but he didn't until he was nearly 9 months. I WANTED him to stand up at 10 or 11 months but he waited until he was 15 months old. I wanted him to walk by 12 or 13 months, he was 17 months old before he walked.

I have spent a lot of energy and emotion into being defensive about Liam's slow progression. A few good buddies of mine had kids around the time that we had Liam. Their kids are in dance, are speaking very well, know their ABC's, colors, shapes, ect. I dread when conversations come up with them and I get "Oh, has he not taken to potty training?" and "I bet it's harder to teach ABC's when you have 3 kids.." and "does he have speech problems?". It's been very hard, emotionally, to let go of the mindset that every mom has and that mindset being that her kid is the smartest kid in the universe. I had a thought though, over 2 years ago when Liam was not even standing yet and I was pressuring him to walk. I wanted him to walk so badly. I had been obsessed with it for weeks and tried so hard to make him want it as badly as I did. As I can best recall it, at the time I wrote a blog about Liam not not walking yet and the closing line was something to the effect "Maybe Liam doesn't want to walk, maybe he wants to fly"

It was a profound revelation for me at the time. That Liam wasn't concerned with what the world expected him to do but rather with what HE wanted to do. I had a glimpse into his future of him coming home one day saying "Mama, Papa...I have decided that I want to...." and then expressing to us his deep desire to do something incredible and completely unexpected and being so intent and passionate about it that we could do nothing but give him our full support and admiration, even though we had already laid out the plan that we thought he ought to follow. Our hopes would be crushed but cleared away quickly and replaced by a new vision of what our wonderful son would accomplish and we would be completely confident in his ability to do it and do it well. How did I get all of that from one simple thought that I had while blogging about my 11 month old? It's just a mom thing. We do that stuff. *ahem*

Because I cannot really see into the future but can only speculate, I try to spend less time fantasizing about what my children will become or what they will do and more time enjoying the "now". While Liam is still delayed in development, I don't take much notice of it anymore. These days, I just have a different view on it. Before, I was shielding my child from ever knowing that he was behind. I didn't want to pressure him into being more than he was ready or willing to be.Being the 3rd child cannot be easy. There is already so much to live up to before you are even born. Liam takes it all in stride. He doesn't like being left out of so much because he is still such a baby, but he adores his brother and sister and allows them to baby him and take care of him(and big sister and brother love it too!). 

Last night, I slept in Liam's bed and held him most of the night. Before he fell asleep, I grabbed my camera and captured one last image of Liam as a two year old. I laid down with him and we snuggled and talked about planes and trains and how exciting it was that in the morning he would be 3. But for one more night, he was still my two year old little baby. I ran my fingers through his soft brown hair and kissed his little tiny face more times than I can count. Before he closed his eyes he kissed me and said "Good night mama, I love you so much" and I teared up. I ended up sleeping with his lamp on all night because I fell asleep starring at him. What a beautiful little angel he is, he's great fun to stare at :-)

Happy Birthday Liam Kristopher Mac. We love you so much, too.