Happy Birthday, Mitchell!!!!

As of today, we no longer have four children under five years of age!  We have a VERY special SIX year old in our house today!  

I tell him this all of the time, but Mitchell is my best friend.  Until school started this fall, I spent nearly all of my time and had more conversations with this smiling face!  School has opened up a whole new world to this little man.  He is learning so much academically, but I'm more proud of how much he's growing socially.  All of my family has commented lately on how much he has matured in the last year!

He truly is a gift to our family!  In fact, much like the world's time is denoted by BC or AD, my dad reminded me the other day that our family's recollections are often denoted as "Before Mitchell" or "After Mitchell".  "What year was that anyway?  Well...let's see, it was before Mitchell was born, so it must have been...."

The other night as we were driving home from our Christmas Eve celebration at my mom's house, Jacob drove in a separate car so that he could pick up his sister from the airport and the other kiddos were zonked out from the day full of activities, so Mitchell and I were the only ones awake.  From the very back of the quiet mini-van, I hear him say

"Mom, you know how God takes you to Heaven when we're done on Earth?"

"Yes, Mitchell, that's right." I said, preparing myself for what heartfelt question was to come next.

My preparations fell short and when I heard him say "When God takes me to Heaven, I hope he takes you at the same time, so that we don't have to be apart from each other."

It takes me a minute to respond because of the humongous frog that has just taken up home in my throat, "Mitchell, I hope so too."  AND knowing full and well, there is a very good chance that I'll walk through those gates first, I responded "But Mitchell, if I get there first, you don't need to worry about me.  I'll wait for you."

"You know what else, Mom?"

Again, it takes me a moment to respond.  It's as if he knew that my heart couldn't handle that conversation anymore and needed to be snapped back into reality, Mitchell said...

"I think the blue Power Ranger is stronger than the black Power Ranger."

I looked at him in the rear-view mirror through watery eyes, and said "Yes, buddy.  I bet you're right."

Don't let all of this JOY over welcoming our new baby girl into our family fool you, the core of my heart is completely in L.O.V.E. with the testosterone laden creatures in my house.

And there is a special place in my heart for the one that made me a mom, precisely SIX years ago today!

On that day, I experienced something similar to the popular Christmas character, the Grinch, 

"And what happened then?  Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."