Today is my son's 27th birthday.
He is named Thomas for his uncle and he shares the middle name Joseph with his father and grandfather.
Ben was working the night shift the week Tom was born, so I was home alone when my water broke in the middle of the night. I jumped out of bed, and stripped the sodden sheets off the mattress before I called him.
Some time in the middle of my seven-hour labor, I told Ben, quite sincerely, "I changed my mind. I don't want to do this right now. Let's go home." He dissuaded me.
Although my labor and delivery were quite normal, Tommy (as he was called then) and I stayed in the hospital for five days after he was born, which was standard for that time.
When Ben's parents came to visit us in the hospital, his father looked at our three-day-old son and told us, quite solemnly, "Before you know it, he'll be in college." We laughed at the time, but now I would amend that to, "Before you know it, he'll be a married adult living in a big city far away."
My own father was out of town on business when Tom was born, so was unable to visit us in the hospital. He did, however, bring our infant son a souvenir of his trip.
Since Ben and I are both eldest children and we were the first in our circle of friends to get married and have a child, we pretty much raised Tom in a vacuum. We really knew no other children to compare with Tom, and although we thought he was quite amazing, we didn't realize how far above the norm he was for some time.
We kept waiting for Tom's remarkable blue eyes to turn brown like ours, but they never did. He still gets comments on how beautiful his eyes are.
Tom's first year was one of the best years of my life. I felt as though I grew and changed almost as much as he did. I loved being a mom. I still do.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Tom! I love you very much.
5 comments:
Thank you for the kind words, stories, and birthday wishes. A few of these I had forgotten! What a nice post to read on my birthday.
Thanks Mom!
Yes, Happy Birthday Tom! I remember getting the call while working at Harshaw Chemical Company. What a breathtaking experience. And such joy that first Christmas, do you remember Anne? Our first Christmas in a house of our own, with a child of our own. Tom you and your sister made raising a family easy, even though we had no idea what we were doing! Much love to you on this anniversary of your birth!
>> even though we had no idea what we were doing! - oh man, that's for sure! I remember how amazed we were that the nurses were actually going to allow us to take the baby home with us.
Are you sure, Ben, that you'd include Julie in your comment, "you made raising a family easy?" ;)
You know she reads this blog, don't you? You are living dangerously.
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