Ode to Jude

Today Jude celebrated his eighth birthday.  As usual I was thrilled and sad at the same time.  I want my babies to live and thrive and grow.  And I also want them to be tiny and chubby and sticky forever.  

It is the lot of all mothers everywhere.  

So I was flipping through some of my "Jude stuff" tonight--drawings, mementos, pictures, etc. and came across an entry I wrote three years ago.  It reads:

"My baby just turned 5 years old and I was sitting here smiling over thoughts of him.  He has the quintessential '5th born' personality--so laid back and joyful.  He walks with a little spring, a little lifting off the toes, as if he is launching into the next moment of his life in great anticipation.  But he is by no means incautious about it.  His thumb is still his best friend and he sucks it with so much enthusiasm that I am surprised that there is still skin on it.

Some of my favorite things--

  The way he pushes his upper lip out into a 'V', like a tiny turtle.

  The way he smiles up  at me from underneath his ridiculously long eyelashes.

  The way he sleeps with his knees tucked up under him and his rump in the air.

  The way he runs to greet me when I am gone for even two minutes to take out the trash or get the mail.  He comes with his arms stretched out and says, 'Mommy!  You're here.  I'm so glad!'  Or (my favorite), 'Mommy!  I love your face!'

 The way he loves Keira.  He plays with her all morning, every day.  He greets her with joy each morning.  He feeds her her breakfast, whether she wants him to or not:)  He pushes her in the swing and pulls her in the wagon.  He tells her he loves her at random moments all through the day. 

 Tonight, I heard him singing to her in the garden--just four words.  'Keira, I love you, love you, L-O-O-O-O-O-VE  (on a high note) YOOOOOOU.'   And then with a flourish, 'Oh, Keeeeeira!'

She appears to think that this level of adoration is normal and to be expected in the life of every two year old, since she takes his declarations of love in stride, barely looking up from her play.  Or maybe that is just her way of playing it cool, because if Jude ever wanders off without her, she rushes over and inserts herself into whatever project he has started.  With a flourish.

He is a good friend.  He tolerates her penchant for stealing his toys.  He cries when she wrecks his train tracks and block towers--but not usually in anger.  More in the spirit of 'how could you?' than 'I'll GET you!'

I love the way he shares ALL his things with Kaiden.  They wear the same clothes.  They have the same interests in toys and books.  And although they have their share of normal squabbles, Jude is not proprietary with his stuff.  He heart is as big as the world.  Like his Papa."

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And now he is eight, and no longer sucks his thumb (for which I am grateful), and he sleeps in an exhausted, big boy sprawl instead of tucked up like a toddler.  

He still loves his Mama and his sisters, but is a bit more reserved about it, choosing to slip up next to us for quiet hugs at random moments rather than screaming his devotion to the four winds.  

He has grown even closer to Kaiden, looking to him for approval, sharing every frog and joke and drawing with his little "twin" first.  They are full of plans for tomorrow and the next day and next year and forever, and I love that.  I don't think Jude remembers a time before Kaiden, although he told me today that he remembered that he was cold when he was born and wished the sun was out that day.  

I remember being cold when he was born too.  I delivered him in a metal-coated surgical suite under garish lights with a team of physicians standing by so he could be rushed off to fix the deformed artery in his little heart.  We knew it had to be so, but it hurt my heart to watch them take him away from me.

And they put him into the PICU with so many other little broken babies and I was one of so many worried parents praying over my tiny child.

And as we prayed, we waited for the blood flow to diminish through the defective aorta--the sign that he would soon need to have his chest opened, his tiny heart cut and the damaged artery pieced back together.

It should have diminished.  His anatomy was all wrong.  We had been told so for months.  
We had the pictures to prove it.  The surgical team kept waiting for the crisis to occur.

But it didn't.  His heart did what there was no medical explanation for.  It fixed itself. (Or rather Someone fixed it.)   And suddenly there were flurries of tests and puzzled expressions and specialists looking to other specialists for confirmation of this strange thing.

A healthy baby in the PICU with no need for their services and no protocol in place to let him leave.

"No babies are ever discharged right from the PICU," the nurse told me, as I finally nursed my little boy for the first time.  "We don't even know the procedure for releasing him to go home."

But they finally let us go, and like so many of the things that we have waited for, struggled for, and prayed for, the homecoming was all the sweeter for the pain.  

I will never forget the feeling of crossing the threshold of my house, weeks ahead of when I should have, with a healthy, pink baby boy--no follow ups, no medications, no precautions--and weeping with gratitude for such a gift.

For so you are, Jude!  Your sense of wonder is contagious.  Your smile irresistible.  Your passion for frogs is...apparently limitless.  I love how you LOVE--drawing, baseball, police cars, chicken Alfredo, Hank the Cowdog, Isaiah's jokes, numbers, Legos, flowers.  Your heart is full of the joy of life and your mouth is quick to bring praise to God.

Your very name means "praised", and from the beginning you have inspired praise.  You received a miracle at your birth and brought praise to your Maker.  May you always do so!

Happy Birthday, sweet boy.  We love you!