It's a birthday day in our house today. The day couldn't be much more different from that day 16 years ago when we welcomed our second son. Today is chilly and damp; sweats and socks in the summer weather. That day was hot and sticky--I can still feel it!--and we had been strawberry picking over the weekend. It was a Tuesday, a solid week before my due date, and I was determined that the strawberries would not go to waste, so we were standing in a stinking hot kitchen stirring jam on the stove when I started to think I might be having contractions. We were going to finish that jam, though, dagnabit, so we sweated it out, me thinking these contractions were not so bad, considering their frequency, and Guy asking if we should get moving and just forget about the jam.

Have you ever made jam? Just leaving it without cleaning up the mess is really not an option. I had ruined a batch the year before, and remember still the rock hard glob that I spent days chipping out of the pot. Our firstborn had been induced, so we really had no idea what to expect when it came to labor that was not closely monitored and administered, lying in a hospital bed.

Once the jam was finished, and the pot washed, I had been having 7 minute contractions for about an hour, Jonathan had been picked up, and we headed to the hospital, where I labored f-o-r-e-v-e-r because we had gotten there too early. No wonder I thought the contractions were no big deal--they weren't! Eventually, they developed into something (what a difference!) and, after much frustration of women who came in after us leaving before us, I pushed twice and out came our big-headed baby boy! All 9lbs, 10oz of him. I remember being so excited for his brother to meet him, and just as excited to not be pregnant any more in that heat! I also remember the nurses telling us that they did not have diapers big enough for him in the nursery--they had to go up to pediatrics to find some--and the little bit of panic I felt wondering if he would fit in the clothes we brought to take him home in! (He almost fit in those pajamas. He wore them just the one time!)

In the years that have followed, he has put me through just about every emotion and every frustration nameable, and many that are not. He has the ability to make me crazy raging mad, as well as to touch my heart so deeply I smile, cry and melt all at once. He is at times one of the most mature people I know (yes, "people," not "kids"), and at other times such a baby. He makes me crazy. He makes me laugh. He makes me cry, despite my best efforts. He makes me proud. He embarrasses me. I love him dearly, though there really are times when I don't like him much.

More than anything, I hope I have done right by him. I hope I have been the momma he needed when he was small, and the momma he needs now. Sometimes I see him do things, or hear him say things that just make me cringe, and I wonder if I have failed in some way. Those are the days I want to go back in time and hold him in my arms again--but then I remember that he was never much of a snuggler, and I chuckle at the memory. He always was a great hugger, though, and still is, when I ask.

Happy birthday, Henry Lou. I love you. So very much.