Dear Shep,

I’m going to take this month to write little updates on each area of your little self bc one post is just too little to contain all of the amazing news in your world right now. Why not start with mornings and go from there?

Right when you wake (typically 7-7:30), we hear you chatting in your room from ours and head off to rescue you. Typically we hear “Shepawd get it” or “mommy get it” which means that you’ve thrown everything from your crib and you’re assuring yourself and the others in your room that it will in fact, be put back in its rightful place. Kills me. Sometimes I stand outside of your door just to hear the chatter for a minute. The moment I walk in I get a hello from you and you pop up for me to “hold you” as you say and 9/10 times I get a good kiss somewhere from the neck up as a sign of approval. Every now and then you throw an “ooooooweeeeee mommy” if I’ve made you particularly happy that morning (normally by mentioning the breakfast or fun in the next room that’s waiting for you).

Dolly helped me fix the living room up and so now we head straight to your white fluffy chair pulled up to the coffee table and you eat your breakfast like such a big boy. Your favorites are still mini muffins, but a few other hot “bites” these days for breakfast are eggs (you even eat them boiled…so funny!), “can cakes”, waffles, and hash browns. Side note: Mommy might need to health up breakfast? You pick at it a bit while chugging your juice, then head right back to your rightful place in my lap on the couch while we watch River eat away and snuggle. Sweet boy, this is my favorite part of the day with you. You give the most snuggles in that 5-10 minute span and I eat them up like mad. We get asked for “noise” a lot in the mornings which is translated as a Curious George episode called “scaredy dog”. Basically, they hear a scary noise and try to figure out what it is, but mainly you just enjoy shouting the word NOISE when you hear it and say it over and over again. Over. and. over. I might try and distract you from watching that every now and then bc let’s face it, no one loves hearing that word screamed too terribly often. If at all……

Just as I get super settled into our snuggle fest, you pop up like you’ve decided to start your day and you’re off. Headed straight to the play room to open every single drawer and pull out every single toy. It’s also your favorite time to request a toy that takes a ton of cleanup or effort on my part bc it’s super convenient to do to a mommy RIGHT when she wakes up and is extremely antsy to dig into her luke warm coffee. “WAYDOOOOOOOOO mommy pwese? pweses?” (translation: go get my playdoh woman!). Some days its “COWAAAAAAAAS” (translation: coloring book plus paints plus chalk plus one giant sharpie to walk around the house with taunting me with either the destruction of another piece of furniture or the tantrum that WILL occur once I take it from you).

If it’s the weekend and your Daddy is home, sometimes we head straight outside or pull out the really big fun bc there’s someone to hold the fort down in shifts. Shifts are good for parents when it comes to things like coffee, potty breaks (we don’t actually use the potty kiddo, we sit…..we sit with our pants off on a toilet and it’s all a hoax. Crazy part is, we both know it and continue to do it. So yeah, we don’t have issues if you were concerned at any point in your childhood. We were just hiding).

Thank you for being such a fun reason to wake up each day. I have never been a morning person and I won’t go all gushy mom and lie and say that I am now, but I will say that you make them better. You make the morning a lot less about me and being tired and a lot more about the important things. I will always love seeing your face when I wake up, getting my kisses and snuggles, and hearing a giant “TANK TEW MOMMY TANK TEWWWWWWWWW” just because I heated up a frozen boxed waffle and threw it on a plate. You are nothing if not an adventure and I’m so happy to start my days with you in them.

Stay tuned for part two……

Xx Mommy