Time Flies

I've been looking a lot at Everest. I am really studying him. He is growing so fast that I want to ingrain all of him into my mind so that I don't forget how far he's come. I look at his little fingers and the way his ears slant out ever so slightly. I look at his hair and know exactly where there are some tufts of hair growing faster than others. I know his skin like I know my own reflection in the mirror. I look at his arm where he got his TB shot and the scars on his forehead and legs. I marvel at how he seems to be outgrowing clothes right before our eyes.
I'm cementing in my thoughts the touch of his hand when he reaches up to grab mine because before too long he won't want to hold his mom's hands. I scoop him up in my arms more than I should with an almost 5 year old to make up for all of the time we lost.
I tell him continuously that I love him because even though he doesn't know what the word love yet means, I want him to remember me having always said it to him.
Most of all I am not just saying I love him because I feel like it is what I am supposed to do. I am saying it because I mean it.
It was not too long ago that I didn't know if I would ever feel a mother's love. I felt a mother's responsibility but a mother's love was a foreign entity. I would ask myself, "How do I love this stranger that we brought into our lives?" Now I ask myself, "How could I not?"
I would ask myself continuously why I couldn't experience a bond with Everest that all of my newly pregnant friends were already experiencing with their unborn children. Now I know that I am among the lucky ones. That sometimes a learned bond can be among the strongest of bonds. And I am lucky.

Everestisms:
"Everest, what did you eat for lunch today at school?"
"Chicken."
I cluck like a chicken and tell him he is going to turn into a chicken with the amount he eats.
"That's what a chicken says Everest."
"Well mom, what does a noodle say then?"
"Nothing."
"Well then what does a hot dog say?"

"Mom?" I hear while Everest is sitting on the toilet pooping.
"Yes?" I walk in.
"Mom, I need handle bars so that I don't fall in my poopers."
He must be really stuck on getting the handle bars because he's asked twice.

I walk into daycare to see a little plastic baggy with his underwear in it.
"Everest, what happened here?""Ahhh Momma, no worry. I just poop in my underwears, just a little bit."

"Momma, I'm your little boy at home and I am a big boy at school."

"Momma, you sing to me the canelopey song?" (Piano Man by Billy Joel).

Everest looking at my two pregnant friends and asking them ever so tactfully why they are fat.

I don't know if you knew this but the song isn't actually Mary had a Little Lamb. According to Everest it is Mary had a Little Man.

The day after our huge storm Everest is in the backseat of the car and says to me, "Momma, you remember the crazy rain?"
"Yes Everest I do."
"That was really crazy rain Momma. I yell at it a lot."
"No Everest, that's called screaming."