PA-r-AID!

I have one hand around you bracing a stroller and the other around you bracing a hand rail on the metro. You are slung across my chest in a steamy-you forgot to remove my winter layers-nap. We are riding home from another one of our daily adventures. Your father says I take too many of these. So I ride home wondering, do I? Will you ever remember these moments that feel so gratifying? Is it making you a better person?

Your Daddy and I used to live a few blocks away from the famous Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. We never went to see it. I had no interest to venture out in the masses waiting to see the Parade. But you, you dig everything parades. You want to cheer and wave flags and clap to the bands marching and stare at awe. You enjoy the fact that everyone is there to see it and you are too. You like seeing, "pee-ole" from eye to eye. You don't mind waiting en mass, "wait! Wait!" you ask me when I try to back us away, "more pA-r-AID." You make your drumming sounds and beat the air with your pretend sticks and I smile convinced, "yes, more parade."

It's these funny moments when I start tearing up seeing soldiers, or a mom bolting to the street waving and jumping like a crazed fan about to get body guarded because her son is marching by Constitution Avenue in a Cherry Blossom Parade, that I realize how different you have made me. Because I totally 100 percent get her. She is what internally triggers an emotional response of teary precious love. When I was pregnant something happened. I used to see soldiers and see a person making a choice to do something I didn't agree with. With you in utero? My vision has since blurred to a family torn apart because of a sacrifice and I have this teary reaction where I can just ball my head off at the sight of uniforms and my heart physically aches for strangers separated or worse. I rented a movie about four friends in a city and could not relate to it. It seemed completely over the edge and impersonal to me because my life felt ions away.

My life is you and everything you love. Thank you for changing me. For changing my heart and the things it beats for. Thank you for being sweet wonderful you.