The Dirty Half Dozen: Thursday 7.22.10

Greetings this fine Thursday morning from

KADEN

who was placed in my arms 5 YEARS AGO today.

The only problem is that I have absolutely no memory of that moment … because I was on drugs. It’s one of those really long birth stories that involves ice chips and barf pans and narcotics in my IV line that seriously tripped me out and over A DOZEN epidural sticks from my lousy anesthesiologists.

The only thing I remember about delivery was hearing the bed being broken down and a despairing feeling of exhaustion, delirium and worry that I wouldn’t be strong enough to actually make it through. Ben tells me that miraculously Kade came on the first push and that I drifted quickly back out of it.

But the next morning …

I remember the next morning perfectly … waking up at 4:30 am feeling completely refreshed and energized … getting dressed in Ben’s jammie pants and worn white henley and practically skipping down the hall to the nursery to meet my son … coming back to the room and soaking in every wonderful thing about him … loving that I had two days to stay in the hospital to do nothing but love on him … awed and grateful that my messed up body that had been declared infertile had created a fourth miracle to hold.

Dylan and Cameron were in love.

Savannah hated him. As in I Hate Your Guts hated him. She was only fifteen months old when he arrived and wasn’t ready to give up being the baby. Which is why in the years since she’s forgiven him for being born that I have loved watching how close they’ve become.

Five years ago, July 22nd was a good day.

And every day since then, I’ve become more and more smitten with the silly face super star that is Kaden. On December 1, 2008, I gave Kade a shout out:

Some middle children get lost in the shuffle. That will never be Kade. His personality is half baby T-Rex (complete with growling, stomping and property destruction) and half laid back, flip-flop wearing Matthew McConaughy (hey ... ya know ... whatever ... you do what you need to do). The end result is a rambunctious, LOUD little boy who rolls with the punches and is pretty mellow when it comes to change.

And impossible not to notice.

Kade is hysterical to be around. He loves to point to his elbow, scrunch up his face, and in a growling voice, show you his "missiles." He loves to tell 6'4" Uncle Dane that he's bigger than him because he's "STRONG!!" (For the record, he justifies having any privilege because he's strong: I can have ice cream because I'm strong. I don't have to go to bed because I'm strong .....) He loves wrestling with Sean and has perfected the fine art of belly flops on his siblings. He loves eating popcorn and watching movies , and just like mom, thinks that Transformers is a perfectly acceptable Christmas movie. He loves calling mom a goofball anytime I forget or drop something. He loves to "walk" around the house on his knees because he's not Kaden, he's WALL-E. His voice impersonation is flawless.

Or on November 14, 2009:

Kaden is my kid who loves R2D2 and Geo-o Trax and watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer in September. My kid who loves our kitty Leo because he's the fluffiest and performs a rousing rendition of Once Their Was A Snowman. My kid who announced out of no where that “Mom, sometimes I bite trees.” My laid back, silly-face-making, goofy-talking, park-loving, stick-figure-drawing, name-spelling, four-year-old wunderkin.