Month 12

Dear Grayson,

Your mama is having a hard time fathoming this one year old stuff. Your becoming a big boy before my eyes and I can no longer find clothes in pastel colors (albeit only pastel greens and blues even then) for you. You're entering "Boy World" whereby we dress you in solid prints and dark hues. I whimper occasionally when doing shopping for you. I sneer at the clothing manufacturers which insist little boys like monster trucks and footballs. I would like to dress you in little ducks and puppies and bunnies for a few more months now. Do you have to adhere to our cultural obsession with masculinity so soon?

You have been such a busy boy lately. You've perfected your duck quack to an art-form. In fact, I'm a little worried that after being helped along by Grandma and Grandpa's stuffed Easter duck gift which when pressed quacks loudly at your own twelve-month-old command, your own personal quacking might initiate a duck migration the likes of which have been unimagined in a small nameless neighborhood outside Fort Wayne. You quack. You quack loudly. And often spontaneously. And I laugh. And then you quack all the more animatedly. What this means for your future has yet to be determined. A future as the Chick-Filet spokesperson? God, help us. Your father and I have considered entering you in local duck call contests to raise a little money for your college tuition. I think you've got a good shot in the tri-state area.

Your life continues to revolve around family...your grandparents, your sisters, your parents. But, what hasn't been mentioned in this blog is your relationship with your Greek grandparents, your Yaya and Papou. Our neighbors, Helen and Kosmas, have welcomed you since learning of your conception and consider to adore you beyond words. Sweet Kosmas is declining into the abyss of Alzheimer's, but when you arrive to visit, he quickly perks up and chatters happily to you (mostly in Greek, and mostly insisting that you are a girl...but these are small details, yes?). Helen smothers you with kisses, and sends us home laden with Greek pastry which she made by hand. You have no idea now how blessed you are to be bathed in their affections, but in time you'll know. You'll run across the street (after carefully looking both ways) and come home, your pockets full of Helen's cookies, and tell us how much you love your Yaya and Papou.

But they aren't the only ones...there's Grammy and Papi, who watch you each and every Wednesday rain or shine and offer their abundant grace and love. There's Grandpa and Gramma B. who shower you with affection and fly you high in airplane rides. There's Miss B. who reads you Sandra Boynton books (because they were her favorites) and takes her role as big sister so very seriously (despite being so reluctant when she heard of your arrival). There's Miss T., who even in the thralls of teenaged Facebook Obsession hears and comforts you when you fuss and allows you to contentedly sit in her lap and bang on the computer keyboard as if you were writing your own Facebook Likes and Dislikes. There's your Texas kin and Connie, and Lynn, and Cheri, and Erin, and Lili, and Abby, and Beck, and Mia, and Uncle Bryan and Aunt Kimberly and all your aunties, and your extended family and pretty much the entire staff of the Hospice where Mommy works, and too many more to name and What I'm saying, Boy-Boy (and there's a reason Mommy capitalized this last bit, because I wanted to say it with EMPHASIS, is that you have a village that surrounds you and loves you and marvels at the very being of you.) Don't ever forget that. Even when plagued by acne and voice change and other woes of adolescence.

Happy Birthday, Wonder Boy. The most amazing gift I received in the world was delivered at 4:36 p.m. on March 28, 2007. And I will never be the same.

I love you, love you (and that can be translated in Duck-Speak to "Quack, quack, quack.")

Mama