Forgive us. We were stupid.

Dear Baby,

Much time has passed and between here and there we’ve discovered who you are - a happy, giggling little red-headed boy - and who we are as parents.

When I was pregnant a very wise person told me that when one has a child, the child itself is not really the gift. Instead she said, the gift of the journey is how we - the parents - are changed by it all. There is certainly truth in that statement.

Let me say, with full disclosure, that your father and I weren’t sure we wanted a baby. We certainly went into marriage with the idea that we didn’t THINK we wanted children. We wanted to live our lives having challenging careers, traveling, reading and writing books and generally doing whatever we liked to do, when we liked to do it. 

Children would prevent us from doing those things, we said. And we were absolutely correct in that assumption. 

Becoming your parents has, for the time being at least, consumed our entire lives, and quite strangely, we are not the least bit saddened by these - temporary - constraints put on us. I had always assumed we would be. Somehow I always assumed that the trade-off would be a net-loss.

Forgive us. We were stupid.

The adventurous life we gave up was lovely but pales in comparison to the joy and adventure of this first year, watching you go from a wrinkly, sleepy infant to a big, bright-eyed, sleepless boy who wants to read books and stand in his crib.

Recently I watched a show touting this young surfer who had died as the epitome of how to live; he'd sacrificed his life doing what he loved.

Those folks are wrong. You live the best life by getting up each and every day and giving, by creating something worthy of your sacrifice.

The truth is there is no greater adventure than raising a child. No big wave. No trip to Italy. No rock-n-roll concert. No great novel. No bottle of wine. No career. Nothing compares to you, my son. Nothing compares to your giant smile when you wake in the morning or the belly laughs at bedtime or that look of surprise when you’ve learned something new.

Without question you are the greatest achievement of our lives, Baby. You are indeed a gift, but more importantly you are also our teacher, showing us the capacity within ourselves to love, to be loved, to sacrifice, to laugh, to understand what family really means, to not fear change and risk because it is necessary to face those things in order to build the best possible life.

I hope to become someone you’re proud to call “Mommy.” I hope we can have many grand adventures together. (By the way, your dad is going to want to watch Star Wars 400 times and bore you to tears talking about Roman Emperors. Just go with it.) 

I hope you will keep teaching and I hope I will keep learning, and vice versa.

Love,

Mommy