Letters to Our Sons Project: Month #1

Today marks the start of a new monthly project I will be participating in through Clickin Moms, a wonderful online photography forum that I am so blessed to be a part of.  This Letters to Our Sons Project is actually a spin-off of two similar blog circles (found here and here) started by some of the Clickin Moms Pros, and I found myself so inspired by their monthly commitment to writing to their children that I decided to create another such blog circle.  I hardly know the other women who will be undertaking this project with me…we are separated by many miles and our lives are all very different, but I do know that we share two things in common: a passion for photography and a deep love for our sons.  And so, I am very excited to share this very important part of my life with them (and with you!).  I hope you will enjoy getting to know each of these women too!
Month 1: November 2012
Dear Theo,

This isn’t my first letter to you, but it is certainly the first in a very long while.  Most of my previous letters were written in a journal I kept since I found out I was pregnant with you, and each letter was written to chronicle your development as well as my own feelings about becoming a mother and documenting little snapshots of our lives in those early days.  You are almost two and a half years old now, and those random journal entries about breastfeeding difficulties and teething woes already feel like a billion years ago.  Now our days are filled with laughter, a constant stream of conversation and mutual story-telling, music, imagination, and the occasional temper tantrum. 😉  I used to write to you about how difficult it was to leave you every day when I had to go to the office, but I have been beyond blessed for the past 8 months to be able to spend my days at home with you now.  Despite the long hours of work I have to put in after your bedtime each day, and my own occasional temper tantrums out of sleep deprivation or even (dare I say it) boredom, this is still my absolute favorite decision I have made in the past two and a half years since you were born, and I wouldn’t miss these days spent with you for the world!

Theo, you have a BIG personality.  You are incredibly bright for your age (just the other day I was adding puzzles for FOUR YEAR OLDS to your Christmas list!), your vocabulary is humungous, you have a sense of humor well beyond your years, and your empathy for others never ceases to astound me.  You are now at an age that you are able to put your own thoughts into words, rather than just repeating phrases that you’ve heard us use.  The novelty of your thoughts catches me off guard at least several times a day.  Yesterday, for example, as we were leaving your Abuela and Pop pop’s house, you said (completely unprompted), “Thank you Abuela, thank you for playing with me”.  You are just such a loving, affectionate, and self-aware little guy!

As I was thinking about what picture I’d like to post to really summarize what life is like for us right now, I had to go back to the shots of your beloved pirate hat.  You were completely obsessed with all things Halloween this past month, and you actually insisted on sleeping with your pirate hat for several days because you were so excited to wear it on “Halloween night”!  You’ve never been a very good sleeper, but now that I know you better I realize that’s partly because you are just too darn busy soaking in everything around you to waste your time resting.  You do pretty much every activity with excitement and vigor and if you’re not jumping, singing, or dancing, then you are probably proposing a game of hide and seek, running a race, or cracking hilarious jokes for the rest of us to enjoy.

Dear Theo, for all of these reasons and more, I love you so so much! <3  Please keep reminding me to stop taking life so seriously and just enjoy every second of it the way you do!

To keep reading the rest of the letters by the women in this blog circle, please visit Candice Victoria Photography.