He Needs Bubble Wrap.

Carter,

You came into this world a healthy 8lb, 12oz baby who barely fit on the scale.  

Your feet were too big for the birth certificate. 

When the doctor held you up and told me to look at you, I swear I thought they were holding up a 3 month old baby.  

You were big. 

You were born without a working epidural.  

Mommy swore she would never forget that pain and guess what?  STILL HAVEN'T.  

But.....you made me do something I thought I could never do in a million years.  You made me stronger because of it.  

I say things to people now like "You think THAT hurts? Let me tell you what HURTS."

But you were the happiest baby I'd ever met.  I'm not kidding when I say you were two weeks old and just smiling up a storm at me.  It was NOT gas.  You truly would just gaze up at me and smile away.  I took a million pics of that smile.

And as the weeks turned into months, my happy baby also turned into my super daring, super curious, super not afraid of anything child.

There was a lot of this:

And that:

There was the time you drank toilet water.

And the time you ate dirt.

Do we really need to calculate all the times you ate sand?

There was that horrible, horrible time you stuck your hand under the vacuum when I wasn't looking.  

And yet, not fazed, went back to playing with your toy vaccuum the next day.

There was the diaper cream incident.

   

And the removal of said diaper cream with dish soap.

You've kept me...busy.

Over the years, your gag reflex was so sensitive, you made me an unwilling expert at catching throw up in my hands.  Do you even realize how petrified your mother is of throw up? The mere mention of it has me sequestered in a room with a Purell seal.   So why is it that I could catch yours daily in my hand?  Disgusting.  And yet there you go, making me push past my fears again.

I've removed fishing hooks out of your hand and bandaged a hole in your foot.

But this latest one?  Was a real treat.

Closing your finger in a hurricane door will do that.

I wasn't there when it happened.  And when I did see it for the first time?
You told me: "It's ok, mommy.  Don't look at it. I don't want you to be scared."

So just add this one to the list.  It's fractured but you're fine and everything will be ok.  
At least, that's what you tell me.  Making your mother stronger, one incident at a time.

The only time you show true pain?

When I make you wear khakis and a button-down.