To my 5 year old...

Dear Devon,

Happy Birthday to my you, my darling Devon!

I can't even believe you are 5 today. These 5 years have flown by. Everyone says "Enjoy every minute because it goes so fast" and they are right. I remember the day you were born and all those emotions - nervous, scared, excited, happy, exhilerated, tense, overjoyed and in love! I was in love with you from the moment I laid eyes on you. You were the sweetest baby I had ever seen.



Your first year was a hard one. Sometimes I would watch the seconds tick by.... tick, tick, tick, tick... and would listen to you crying helplessly for hours on end and think "is this ever going to end?"  The crying finally did end, but it took a long time.  You were so cute - even strangers would stop in the street and tell me how cute you were! By the end of the first year, we knew how smart you were. If we asked you "who is the President?" - you could say in the cutest little baby voice "Barack Obama" and you melted our hearts!



By your second year, you were running around and talking up a storm. You called me "my darling" whenever you really wanted something. You batted your sweet eyelashes and you had us wrapped around your finger. Everyone says "terrible two's," but when you turned two, I got to know you and you were so much fun to be around. I thought two was my favorite age!



By three, you were not a toddler anymore. You turned into a boy overnight. You talked like a little grown up and knew so many things. You were a little sponge... absorbing every little detail about life. You constantly asked questions and wanted answers. Not kid answers, but the real answer. You lined up all your animals according to type, hundreds of little figures organized on our coffee table with such precision. You loved airplanes and we loved you!



By your forth year, you were growing so fast. Every few weeks, your pants would be too short. You were the ultimate big brother, watching out for Dean and listening to make sure he wasn't crying. Every morning, you would wake me up and whisper "Deanie's up. I hear him." Your favorite thing was and still is dinosaurs and your knowledge is impressive. You surprise me with the amount of details and the scientific words you know about dinosaurs. You are confident, careful, dipomatic, expressive, careful, and loving. You are my sweet boy.



And now you are five. You are such a little man. You amaze me with the things you say. Even yesterday, I asked you to be careful wrestling with Dean because Dean is just a baby. And you stopped and said "But he walks now and has all his teeth. He looks like a human." A human? Where do you get these things?! You make me laugh, just by being you. You have started to be independent and to make your own decisions. Sometimes you don't even want to give me a hug and I see how you are becoming my little man, not my cuddly boy anymore. But that's ok, because I'm so happy to be around you. I feel so lucky and blessed to have you.



So, to my sweet 5 year old... I love you.