A love letter to Mito

Do you have any idea how sweet your smile is, my beloved? You melt my heart with even just a sliver of it. Sometimes, when I’m busy with something else, and you’re playing, and then you catch me looking at you, you smile at me with such reassurance, as though to calm my guilt at not spending my every waking moment with you. You are such an angel, Mito.

Every day, we go off to work and you smile at us before we leave. You accept that we do what we need to do, and you don’t begrudge us that. When we get home at night, you grace us again with your smile, and you show your excitement that we can spend time again together. What did we ever do to deserve you, anak?

I am sorry that we don’t have a perfect family, Mito. Your father and I are adults, we mess things up. But you, you are innocence. And forgiveness. And love personified. You convict us of our selfishness, you make it possible for us to go beyond ourselves and do whatever is best for you.

My prayer is for you to always be healthy, always be safe. Don’t let our faults harm you, my son. Don’t let our failures drag you down. You are so much more than your father and myself, combined. You are the favor, the blessing, the responsibility God gave to us.

We love you, Mito. We will be eternally grateful for you, and to you.

A day in Mito's life

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if people remember their first year of life. Would we make statements like:

“Oh yes, I remember I started playing peek-a-boo at 6 months! That was tricky, I tell you. But it taught me about object permanence.”

or

“Dust tasted like old chicken, and the remote tasted like fish. The floor was okay, although its aroma packed a punch whenever it’s newly disinfected.”

I think it would be amazing to hear what goes on in the minds of babies. What can they be processing minute by minute? How exhausting must it be to learn about the world?

Mito is at the stage when he’s unbelievably active and curious about everything around him. He’s a whirlwind of activity. Sometimes he wakes up before 4:00 a.m. and starts playing already, and no amount of begging or even pretend sleep on my part deters him from whatever has caught his interest. He can get so engrossed in whatever he’s doing, so determined on a goal, (say, reaching the night light, or tasting the seat bottom of his daddy’s computer chair) that no matter what obstacles we put in his path, he’ll barrel through that.

And then there are times when, right in the middle of an activity, he powers off. Like right here in this picture. One second he’s honking the horn, mouthing the key, pounding on every little knob on his walker. And then the next second, he’s slumped, asleep.

I sometimes lose energy following him around, but I will never tire of watching my little boy grow up.

You are worried about seeing him spend his early years doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again. ~Rousseau