Little Healer

My mom's side of the family is Native American. My Indian name is "Bright Star" because my mom says I smiled all the time and still do.

My first son is "Little Fire". That's what his name means in Gaelic and it has always been quite true, so it stuck for his Indian name. He was born 6 weeks early, but he was almost immediately off the breathing tube and healthy pretty quickly. We joke that he just didn't wanna miss anything. Today, he is still a little spitfire. I love him. Oh, his passion and his intensity...

My younger son's name is also Gaelic and it means "Little King", but that doesn't quite fit him as his Indian name.

I call him my "Little Healer". Because he saved me, I think, quite literally. After a pregnancy that went so wrong, he came along and gave me a very healthy pregnancy that went all the way and then some. He helped me to renew my faith and belief in the power of prayer. And then to boot, he was born a few days after Thanksgiving, during Prematurity Awareness Month. It was like he was saying to me, "It's ok, Mommy." Just the very thought of him brings me to some happy, comforted place.

And then there's the smiling. My God, the smiling. He smiles all the time, even through being sick and even in his sleep. There is just something about his little aura and the presence that he gives off in a room, how he just somehow brightens things and calms them, and he makes me and everyone around him feel so warm and loving and happy. It's almost magical. If I could describe him in one word, it would be delicious.

I just want to squeeze him and eat him up. I am just so thankful for my little healer. I even forgive him for the three hours of pushing and that crazy episiotomy.

I really am ok with his being one already, especially because every day and every new phase of his life is so much fun to watch, like watching him now take his first steps. It just goes so quickly I have to remember to stop and relish every moment of it.

OK, enough with the sentimental gobbledeegook. Yesterday we partied like rockstars! The theme was a music-Elmo combo platter because he loves both of them. So I took out all of our instruments and bought a zillion maracas and even had some blow-up instruments, like blow-up guitars and microphones (but nothing that you can put your mouth on because it's a party during flu-season.) Oh, also all the adults got some complimentary earplugs.

Then I gathered all the kids up and we had a concert (that's my little guy at the piano).

And then, my little guy and I gathered everyone up in a line and we marched in a child-parade around the backyard, out to the pinata.

And yes, I feel very guilty that the pinata was Elmo. And that we were hitting Elmo.

In my defense, when I went to go buy him and got hit with these pangs of "We're really going to hit Elmo?" guilt, the guy at the party store laughed at me and told me I was being silly. So I actually thought I was being silly.

So imagine the feeling I had when I heard a collective gasp from parents about the fact that we were all about to beat Elmo to a pulp. Nice.

After all the kids took one big swat at Elmo, we resorted to the strings and yanked on him instead, to get the candy. It was more humane.
And then there was cake. I'm so proud of this, I might add. It's really a High School Musical Cake with all of the "High School Musicalness" taken off except for the notes, and then I found some little plastic Sesame Street guys with music instruments that I put on the cake instead. I totally lucked out on finding those! Imagine that! Oh, the little victories in my life...

Anyway, he loved the cake. And he cried big fat tears when I had to stop him from devouring the whole thing. I like to think that everyone had fun! I was mostly surprised that the little piano was such a hit, pretty much every kid at every age took turns on that thing singing and playing music like Billy Joel or Elton John (-- best 20 bucks I ever spent at Toys R Us!) At one point, I hear my cousin's little boy off in a corner yelling into the microphone, "Can I getta YEAH?!" And then a tiny voice replies, "Yea-uh!"

Cracks me up.

Little Healer

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2008/11/little-healer.html