Every Little Wonder

Happy birthday, my dear, sweet, amazing, perfect little boy.

I don’t have words big enough to express how I feel about you. It’s a lot like love, only it’s more like love times infinity to the moon and back again. Plus a million. And then some. They day you were born and they first laid you on my chest, I thought my heart would explode from love. I thought it was stretched to its very limit and I couldn’t hold even a smidgen more of love. But somehow, it did. Somehow, every day, my love for you grew. My love for your dad grew as I watched him be an amazing father to you. Every day, my heart gets bigger and bigger. I don’t even know how I’m able to stand up anymore with all this fierce love coursing through me.

You lean in for cuddles, you zoom around the house begging us to chase you, you give us big sloppy kisses, you babble for hours and hold our hands and clap and dance whenever music’s playing. You are so funny and charming and sweet and brave and strong. You’re the happiest person I’ve ever met.

This year has had its share of challenges and worries, but it’s been the most rewarding, fantastic year of my life. It’s such a pleasure and a honor to be your mom. Sometimes I feel as if a silly little girl like me hardly deserves all this happiness, but when you clasp my fingers and cuddle into me and plop a big kiss on my cheek, I realize: we were meant for each other. You, me, your dad. All of us. We were meant to be a family. This little, perfect family.

I love you, little monkey.

Inspired by Nicole’s 30 Before 30 list, I present my 28 Before 28… 28 things I hope to accomplish by next year’s birthday:

1. take Ezra to the beach [yes! ]
2. start web design business
3. visit my friend at her new home in Florida
4. related to previous: visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
5. start my taco blog (oh yes, there will be tacos!)
6. throw an awesome 1st Birthday Party for Ezra
7. get married! or, at the very least, set a date and get the venue booked
8. get back to my pre-baby weight
9. set up website/portfolio for wedding + family photography with Cris
10. shoot another wedding
11. buy a new dining table
12. make a teepee for Ezra
13. quit my job (eek!)
14. pay off all my credit cards
15. get a tattoo
16. find a nanny/babysitter we trust for Ezra
17. make salsa with ingredients from my garden
18. backpost all of Ezra’s pictures to a new photoblog for friends and family
19. get my home in apartment-therapy-ready condition
20. organize photos and print a photobook for each year
21. travel outside the US
22. redesign this blog
23. make homemade donuts
24. institute a weekly cocktail hour chez moi
25. find some sort of mom’s group/parent’s group/ something so that I (and we for that matter) don’t go crazy from not knowing anybody in the area.
26. go camping
27. sell all my no-longer-needed craft supplies
28. throw a few fancy dinner parties

Last week, we took a few days off work in celebration of my birthdayyyyy. I turned 27 on the 27th. I think that means this year is going to be completely awesome, right? Of course.

My birthday usually involves me begging Cris to take me to some ridiculously expensive restaurant so I can play dress up and get tipsy and pretend to be a Real Grown Up for the night. But it turns out that really being a grown up means not spending $300 on one dinner because there are things like car payments and diapers and saving money for a wedding to worry about. Boo.

Instead, I came across this list of birthday freebies and signed up for as many as I could. And then we spent my birthday driving all over the east bay and getting tons of free, gross food. It was pretty fantastic.

Breakfast: chocolate chip pancakes @ IHOP

Chili dog @ Weinerschnitzel (this went straight to Cris, of course. just looking at it make me kinda queasy)

tacos @ Rubio’s

ice cream @ baskin robbins

burger @ red robin

and, just for kicks, a free little makeup kit from sephora

I was a little mortified at the thought of going somewhere and only ordering something free and nothing else, but Cris bravely forged ahead for my sake and I bashfully hid behind him and tipped well. We at like kings gluttonous pigs. Saldy, our tummies could only take so much and we skipped out on the the free ice cream from Coldstone, the free entree at Chevy’s, and the free steak dinner at Black Angus.

The rest of our mini-break was spent either bumming around my mom’s house (and letting her watch Ezra so we could go see a movie—Inception? Completely awesome, in case you were wondering) or bumming around our home. I don’t think I ever pictured spending my 27th birthday this way, but I guess I’m a total old lady now because it was pretty much perfect.

I know it might seem like I’m a little biased, but it’s actually 100% pure scientific fact that Ezra is the most amazing, intelligent, fantastic, adorable, funny, wonderful baby who has ever existed in the history of forever.