Kamuela James | Eleven Months

My life is now a love letter to you, my days are the stanzas trying to prove that I am worthy of your love, punctuated by hugs and kisses. I always thought that it would be your father's love that I would have to work so hard for but now I realize that no, it's yours. You see, your father chooses to love me, he vowed himself to me and gave himself freely, wanting me to be his wife. You though, my son, had no choice in the matter of who your parents are and so now here we are, every day, every moment, composing our love letter, our life, to you, that you might find us worthy to be loved in return. You are our everything. You are my good morning and my good night. You are my busy days and restless nights. You are the prayer I pray with every single breath that I take. Each and every milestone that you cross is the single greatest moment of my life, bringing me more pride then I ever thought possible. The joy that swells in my heart, bursting from the seams, is caused by you and you alone, and it is overwhelming, all consuming, and never ending. Each evening as I watch you drift off to sleep, I thank God for you, for making you, for keeping you, for deeming your father and I worthy of caring for such a magical little boy. I am so humbled by you and feel completely unworthy and inept to be your mother, but grateful for the honor nonetheless. As you are learning, every moment of every day, so am I and I hope your patience and grace towards me will always be as it is now. I hope that you always run to me and never away and I hope, desperately, that you will always know exactly how much I love you.

Kamuela lately: He loves vacuuming and sweeping and recently learned how to wipe up a mess and put his legos back in the bin. He doesn't like giving kisses anymore but will high-five like a champ! We play football and catch with him a lot and he's learned how to throw! The throwing motion has significantly helped with his high-five. He loves hiding from people and getting surprised, he loves tickling and being tickled. His laugh is... the best laugh in the whole world. When he sees Josh come home from work he lights up like a Christmas tree and says "Hi Dad!" which makes us both melt into a puddle, every.single.day. This week he started signing "please" and it is the CUTEST. The absolute freaking cutest thing ever. Every once in a while he also signs "thank you" and/or blows kisses. Also very cute. He always wants to be with Josh when Josh is cooking, even though the stove is "HOT". He has that word down for sure. Anything that I tell him is dangerous, anything that I tell him he can't do, his immediate response is "HOT!". He's very proud of himself for knowing what is hot. His word list: hi, hot, Dad, Dada, Mama, tickle, throw, boat, bird, hat, diaper. He is still nursing 4 to 5 times a day and usually about twice in the night. He refuses to be a baby who sleeps through the night, much to my dismay, but I really can't complain too much because he's so perfect in every other way. :) He will eat pretty much anything, although he usually spits it out at least once. We have him his first official haircut and suddenly he looks way too grown up. He takes two naps a day, usually, although sometimes the afternoon nap gets skipped. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to transition him to one nap a day but for now I will take all the naps I can get! He understands "no", "stop", "don't", and "give that to me" which is good because he is already running, he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth, and he is so curious that he gets into literally EVERYTHING. Oh, yes, every day is an adventure with this kid. The best adventure ever. 

He's eleven months old. Which means that next month he turns ONE YEAR OLD. We're deep into his birthday party planning and I keep reminding myself that he isn't one yet and to not miss out on this last month of babyhood. My sweet little eleven-month-old baby who is everything to me.