Today is Camden's birthday. My baby is 7 years old. Feeling quite sentimental, I kneeled by his bed tonight when he was barely asleep. I told him what it was like at 9:30 p.m., seven years ago at that very moment. I told him how I had already sent Daddy home to sleep and rest for the both of us, that the nurse wheeled Baby Camden into my room in the nursery bassinet and that I very, very carefully picked him up by myself and settled into bed to snuggle with him. I explained how he was so beautiful, so tiny, so perfect. That I cried as I held him and planted kisses on his tiny nose. I named him my little Buttercup. I don't have any idea where that came from, but it seemed to fit at the time. He's more like a Venus Flytrap at times now, but usually a fun daisy or maybe even a tall sunflower opening wide to the sun. Yes, seven years ago today, he was smaller than my pillow. Smaller than a good bit of his own stuffed animals. And I was smitten in love with him.
As I hugged Camden tonight and told him the stories of his first day on earth, he smiled and hugged me. Then he stretched out his lean seven-year-old arm, reaching up toward the top bunk of his big boy bed. He exclaimed, "Look, Mom, if you do your hand like this," twisting it about in the dim glow of the nightlight, "you can make a longneck." That's a dinosaur. "Yes, Camden. That's a really cool longneck," I told him. Then I hugged him as he made more dinosaur shadow puppets, kissed him on the nose, and told him I loved him.
Goodnight, my little longneck.
