A Letter to Jason

Dear Jason,

I just have to apologize. I am just starting to get back into blogging so that we have a record for our family of what we have been doing. I am excited to do this, but as I am looking through pictures I know that I have missed so much. After you were born I didn't have a laptop to sit and blog on, so I didn't. But I missed writing down so much of what you did for the first two years of your life. I have a terrible memory and I know that you won't have as many stories because they were not written down, but I wanted to tell you that I love you and you have always been such a joy! So I am going to write down in this letter a little about the first two years of your life.

When you were about three months old you broke out in a terrible terrible rash. Head to toe you were just covered. It was so sad. Your pediatrician said that it was just baby acne (ugh...we did not like him) but I knew it had to be something else. I started cutting milk and bread out of my diet hoping that maybe you were having a reaction to one of those, and you started to clear up some. I wasn't sure which one you were reacting to so we took you to the allergist and got a scratch test done. You came back positive for having allergies to milk and eggs. Since I was still nursing you, I had to cut them out of my diet, but it was so worth it. You cleared up and stopped scratching so much. It made me so happy to see. Before we knew what was wrong we always had to keep socks on your hands so you wouldn't scratch your face and you would wake up in the middle of the night rubbing your head on your bed because it was so itchy. So I would come in and scratch your head. You loved having your head scratched.

You were such a mama's boy. You would just sit on my lap all day long. You had no motivation to crawl or walk because you were just content on my lap. Eventually you started crawling at 10 months, then a couple months after that started walking. Even now at 2.5 years old you still love me to hold you, and I love holding you when I am not holding Sadie.

You loved your pacifiers. You called them "rah-rahs". Even until you were 2 and could say pacifier, you just called them "rah-rahs". Another word that you couldn't pronounce when you were little was Camille. You just called her "coco". The nickname you gave her stuck. When she was born we said we were just going to call her Camille, no nicknames. But because of you we now often call her "Co" or "Coco".

We brought you home to our apartment in the Village when you were born and you lived there for the first 1.5 years of your life. We loved all of the people that we met at the Village and would say that so far in our lives, it has been our favorite place to live because of the good friends we met. That being said they were cinder block walls that were ancient. The vents were so full of dust and who knows what else. It was actually pretty disgusting. In turn, you were sick about every other month. I hope that since you were sick so often as a baby, that as you grow up your immune system will be extra strong and you won't get sick too often. Once we moved from there you stopped being sick so often, so I think something in that apartment was making you sick.

Once we figured out the allergy issues, you were actually a pretty chill little kid. Once we took a hike out around a little lake and you were in your stroller and you just hung out the whole time while Camille was running around and dropping rocks in.

 You were fairly serious when you were little. But when you smiled it would just melt my heart. You were the cutest little boy. I loved being able to be home with you and spend so much time with you. I wish that I would have written more each month about the progress you were making and the funny things you were saying, but I didn't. I love you Jason. I can't wait to see what kind of man you grow up to be. If you are anything like your dad you will turn out just fine.