Love the past

I love this kid. :)

This is "Bean", as his dad calls him, and he's ten years old. He's my middle child and he's a funny, smart, fun-loving person. He's been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome since he was five (and a wild man in the Kindergarten classroom). I knew sooner than that, OF COURSE.

Tonight I rigged up the old camcorder (the kind with smaller tapes, not the full size vhs ones) to the huge flat screen tv. We're looking at the 1990s vs. 2000s and it's a huge discrepancy. But I digress. My husband transferred only a few of the old tapes to DVDs and I hadn't seen anything from these tapes in, like, forever. Or ever. Seriously I'm not even sure that I've watched the footage since I recorded it in 2004. So tonight we enjoyed a look back in time. And guess what?

I have footage of my middle child!! Hip hip hooray!

It's true! I wasn't sure until tonight if I had anything but a blip of our precious boy whilst we ran after our first born, the Drama King. It brought a few tears to my eyes and my throat even clenched. It felt like discovering something awesome in your attic that you never knew existed before.

So we watched our four year-old Bean run around, chatting away, and it was amazing. And it was so HIM. Hearing his little voice and looking at his little face again made me vividly remember how in love with him I have always been. How I couldn't go a day without hugging him (and squishing him and calling him George) and smiling back at his bright, contagious smile. No wonder everyone has always forgiven his bad behaviors and loved him.

Flash forward to the loud, rambunctious brothers NOT keeping quiet during our film festival. Their father and I were constantly shushing them as we stared in wonder at the screen. They were enjoying the home movies, just a bit too intensely. They were LOUD. Loudly laughing and cracking jokes and constantly jibber-jabbering. Which isn't a bad thing, them having fun I mean. I was just so caught up in the moment. As if the magic would soon disappear. As if our babies that had momentarily returned to us on the screen would soon be gone forever, only to live on in our old, forgetful brains.

But that's not true. I have it recorded and so to my past-self I wish to say a heartfelt, "Good job! You've always been a great Mom!" On so many, many levels I say that tonight. We have come so far and have grown so much since those days. Along with my praise I also have to say to myself an enormous, "Thank you."

Thank you.

:)