I'm sorry

My dear beautiful baby boy,

Mommy is sorry. You are my first baby, and mommy and daddy have made a ton of mistakes. In just about 3 years, we have made a lot of mistakes. Its sort of a miracle you are still alive. You are the front line of our parenting battle, the proving ground of our parenting worthiness. You are our treasure. At 5 weeks premature we were all so lucky that you had no serious complications and you nursed like a pro!! First thing you did kiddo, umbilical cord still tethering you to me and BOOM!!

Our first 2 years together weren't terribly frught with parental errors. At least not the damaging sort. Jobs lost and gained, military basic training, the struggle of juggling school, mommyhood, working, and showing you my love for you...you won't remember these struggles. They won't have major effects on your life. But, since about 2 and a half we have been embattled in trying to provide boundaries for you, and you pushing them every second of the day. You are loud (I'm sorry, you got that from me), you like to build things, you like to destroy things, you have really BIG emotions (again, sorry that was me). You have a big full life ahead of you. You got, maybe, a little too much of me. We'll see if you temper out with time. You love big and irrationally, you have anger that is loud and you are struggling to keep it from being physical. And as your parents, its our job to help with these things. It is our job to help you learn to guard your heart, and understand your anger. These are very grown up concepts. They are not something that my almost 3 year old can grasp. So how do we build the blocks to get you there?

That is where the battlefield lies. In building those blocks. The blocks that help you understand your emotions, how to experience them in a socially appropriate way, but also in a way that is authentic to who you are as a person. (And that my child seems impossible - even as an adult). The blocks that give you a foundation of love, compassion, and understanding. To accomplish all of this without being permissive... It might just kill us all. This is where we are failing. As you have entered this big phase in your own life and development, we, your loving parents, have entered a different phase too. Parents to two, being a military family, daddy being gone (A LOT), finding time to keep our marriage alive (you and your sister are counting on that, even if you don't realize it yet). These two phases are not easy to streamline together. But we try. Every day, we try. We are exhausted, beaten down, and feeling defeated. But we dig a little deeper and try for you and for your sister.

One thing that I know you will learn is how to apologize, mean it, and live it out. Because we do a lot of that with you. We humble ourselves in our errors, we tell you that we are sorry (sometimes the sorrow is so hard there are tears), and we try again to do better. That last bit, that is the key to a sincere apology. That you strive to do better. If we can give you nothing else, you will get that one thing. And I will have to learn to be okay with that, because that will get you pretty far in life.

Your sister will benefit from you being the first; we won't make as many mistakes with her. Already, we know how to handle various things (like teething, night feedings, crankiness) better. But we want more for you than to be our lab rat. So every day we will keep trying.

And now, I have to put a shirt on and stop you from using toilet bowl cleaner on the coffee table...Lord, help me?

Love,
Me.