Three years and one day ago, William Henry Chandler – or Huck, as we like to call him – was born with bright blue eyes, pink skin, a seriously cute mouth, long fingers, and reddish-blondish-goldish hair that stood in a perfect faux hawk right out of the oven. When he first his took breath, he didn’t cry. Instead, he looked around the room at a slew of doctors and nurses and stared at everyone with huge eyes as if to say “I’m here, World!” and, just like that, everyone loved him.
The nurses told me that he was a Perfect 10. And as his mom? I (unbiasedly!) 100% agreed.
Henry was my wild child before he was even born. First off, he was HUGE – nearly nine pounds – and, because I have no torso, he literally poked my stomach nearly to my knees and I literally (yes! literally!) was put on bedrest at the end of my pregnancy because my stomach was too large for my body to support. I know that sounds crazy and you probably don’t believe me so here’s a photograph to prove that I have pregnancy bragging rights for the rest of my life:
And if that’s not enough, here’s a good old (8 Months Pregnant) Before and (4 Week Old After). Also, yes! The photograph on the left was taken a MONTH before he was born.
See! The baby was huge!! But! His massive size was not even the factor of his wildness (although I totally take it as a sign he was trouble). His wild streak before birth was this: Every day, from the time he was big enough to move around, I would have to sit on my bed for, like, hours at a time as he moved constantly back and forth. He ALWAYS MOVED and could not stay still, even before he was born, so much so that I couldn’t move around while he was moving around – I’d just lay there and say “I think we may have a wild one” as my stomach bounced up and down and side to side. Homeboy has always been on the go and I have to remind myself this when he does crazy things like run away from me at Max’s preschool drop off or decides that, instead of walking or riding his bike, he wants to sprint up and down the street for an hour at a time. I mean, I may be projecting here, but I’m pretty sure he’ll take State as a Cross Country runner later on in his life.
We love Henry for so many reasons. He is spunky and smart and mischievous and also a total battle axe of a child when he does not get his way. But! He is also crazy loving – this morning he said “I love you!” and “You’re boo-ti-fool!” at least fifteen times when he crashed our bed – and, every morning when he wakes up, he runs into our bedroom and, in a gruff voice, says “I wanna snuggle my Mama!” while curling into my side and he won’t be swayed to do anything else until he’s gotten at least ten minutes of snuggle time – and he’s adventurous and brave and so, so funny and, basically Andrew and I think that he hung the moon. Kids can do that right? Because our spunky boy certainly did!
And yesterday? We gave him orange rolls for breakfast and a spaghetti dinner party with cake and candles and our family’s I’d-let-them-see-me-in-pajamas friends and, through it all, I felt so stunned because, somehow, my sweet little nugget of a newborn has turned into a bonafide little boy with a turtle sandbox and super cool printed pants and bad breath in the morning and a fierce love of Ninja Turtles and his very own Woody doll and the most charming smile in the Universe. We LOVE our boy and are so glad we got to celebrate him the past few days. We love you, William Henry!!
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