Thanks for Theo.

My twins--Polly is a tiny girl version of Theo. It's amazing really. She looks just like he did as a baby.

Almost 10 years ago, on a freezing blustery afternoon, I got to meet my firstborn for the first time. For me the transition to motherhood was easy. One day I was pregnant, the next day I was a bona fide mother. Theo was the easiest baby. I remember his first year with absolutely nothing but fondness. He was my little buddy. He was a pretty easy toddler, too. He had his moments, but gosh he could focus. He could just sit and look at books or play with blocks or do whatever, and he never got bored.

It's no secret that Theo and I butt heads sometimes. It's become somewhat of my life's mission to figure him out and to figure our relationship out. A scene from the movie Looper describes pretty perfectly what I have found out so far.

http://lizer.blogspot.com/2013/07/thats-my-secret.html

Theo is sweet, observant, has a freakishly good memory--like seriously he remembers tons of random details from his toddler and preschool years--is great at voices (you should hear him recite The Sneetches, or any Dr. Seuss story for that matter), is my most dependable child when it comes to chores and jobs around the house, is fiercely independent, works so so so hard at school and at improving, is sometimes too hard on himself, and has the most infectious laugh.

I vividly remember lots of details about Theo's very early life. He had this amazing thick dark hair that stuck up straight. He looked exactly like his dad. He loved his binky. He slept a lot during the days. But I particularly remember the nights. He was a good sleeper, but like any newborn, he woke up at night. When I was recovering from my C-section Matt used to bring him to me to nurse, and I can still picture Theo's tiny perfect face with those enormous eyes that somehow lit up the space around us.

I wrote this not long after he was born: "He wakes up once, twice, or three times in a night, but he doesn’t usually cry, just eats and goes right back to sleep, and I wish you could see how big and bright his eyes are in our dark room." I still get to see those big bright eyes every day. I'm so proud of my almost-10-year-old after all that he's been through and understanding all that he still has to go through, and I love him with the same primal love that I felt for that tiny perfect face in the middle of those long, dark, quiet nights.