Dear Reid,

Just a few months shy of your second birthday and you are adorably walking the line between staying my baby boy and growing up. You try your best at telling us what you want and need but most of it is still words and sounds that I can’t quite make out. While you want to feed yourself and use regular cups, you struggle to do it correctly at times. Don’t feel bad, even when you grow up you’ll still manage to get food down the front of you, we all do. You don’t want to be coddled and when your ready for sleep you want to be laid down and left alone. Your excited to head out the door, with a wave and a goodbye. No more tears when you leave mama’s side. You follow the older kids and want so much to just run and play and have no boundaries. So I continue to warm your bed time bottle, and relish in the moments when you search frantically for your “ankie” and pacifier to settle in for a snooze. I want you to be independent, self sufficient and able to communicate clearly. All those wonderful things that make you a big boy. But I also want you to stay little and run to me when you fall down and get hurt. I want to follow you around aimlessly and watch you explore and learn. I want you to never grow out of your babble because your attempt at sounding things out is so incredibly cute. You very well might be my last baby so I want you to stay small and cuddly for as long as I can keep you because so quickly you’ll need me less and less. It’s for pure selfish reasons that I don’t want you to grow up.  I don’t mind changing your diapers, scouring the house for lost pacifiers, and washing bottles every day. Because you like to use a regular cup, and your eager to sit on the potty yourself and more often than not you come to me for comfort instead of looking for a pacifier. It’s moving quickly and I’m the one unprepared, not you. So bare with me a little while longer and let me hold onto the tiny version of you, because I’m doing my very best to embrace the boy you are becoming.