Five years...

I told the cashier at Walmart this afternoon, "My little boy is turning 5 tomorrow." Aiden looked around and said, "Huh? What little boy? Mom, I'm a big boy turning 5 tomorrow!" Just like that, a sucker punch to the gut, right in the middle of Walmart.

Has it really been 5 years since he swam in the space under my heart? Since I felt his tiny body writhe and wriggle inside of my own skin? Five years ago today, right now, he was supposed to have already been born, but my little man was stubborn right from the start. He's always had his own agenda:-) He just got stuck like a stick in the Georgia clay, refused to move, and so finally at 2:24am on March 23rd, 2006, he was promptly retrieved from my stomach, came out screaming, and pretty much didn't stop for the first 6 months of his life.

Everyone says to cherish those first few months, that they go by too quickly, that you will forget them all too soon. I have a confession...I wanted them to go by quickly. I wanted to forget them, forget the endless screaming, forget being covered in spit-up and being so tired that I could barely remember my own name. I couldn't believe that this was what other mothers raved about, what other mothers wanted to hold onto and never let go. But, little by little, we got to know each other, him and I. I discovered my son and, in doing so, I discovered a new side of myself as well.

When a child is born, so is a mother. And now my little boy, my baby, is turning five. I realized this morning that I've been a mother longer than I've ever done anything else in my life. Longer than any other job I've ever had, longer than any school I ever attended, even technically longer than I've been a wife, I've been a mother. And it's all because of him.

Gone are the days of wishing that time would speed up. He has bloomed into the most perfect and amazing son that I ever could have hoped or wished for. He is kind and polite, smart and outgoing, willful and ambitious. He has his bad days, and I have mine too, and we weather them together, just like we've always done.

I'm so excited to celebrate his birthday with him tomorrow. :-) Lot's of pictures to come, I promise!