Eleven months with Youuuuuuuuuuu

As the video below attests, at around 10 1/2 months you began standing up on your own and taking strides forward. You can be quite talkative and chatty at home, although you tend to be more reserved in public and when among people you don't know well. You're a happy, little guy. You are willing to take risks and be adventurous. While at the beach, you will animatedly crawl towards the waves and you'll even try to quickly walk forward when you pull yourself up to standing - but gravity and your inexperience brings you tumbling down onto the seashore. You know how to fall, however, so even when we are on harder surfaces I don't have to worry too much about your falling, for you are not reckless. I know that with time who you are will continue to transform and evolve and I am willing to grow with you, to let you be where you are in most moments. Unless I'm stressed out and lacking sleep - as happened today when you were screaming in the car, probably from your two lower teeth that have almost broken through. In which case, as you grow bigger and I grow a lot older, I hope you will be compassionate with me. Sometimes, during this now with you when I experience a love so profound that it is unlike anything else in my life, I will make mistakes - like demanding you be somewhere other than where you are. I am sorry, my sweet boy. Accepting my own humanity is still something that I am working on. So, if I were to want anything for you - aside from that which you wish for yourself - I hope that you will accept and love yourself totally and completely. As you are, human, imperfect, frail and flawed while also being so amazingly strong and perfect. Just you, how you are now, in this moment, no need to change, no need to feel shame or sorrow. Just the joy of being, alive, free and human - as you so beautifully demonstrate now.

Posted by Cara H. Cadwallader on Wednesday, August 19, 2015