Eleven

“Wake up. Welcome to the world.” I whispered, rubbing RJ’s sleepy face at 7:08 a.m. “Happy birthday, Baobao.” Then I added with a quiet smile, “You’ve been in this world for seven hours now.”

“Plus 11 years,” he murmured without opening his eyes, a soft breath slipping out, in no hurry to start the day.

And just like that, memories flooded back, winding all the way to the beginning.

Your first ride home, secured in an oversized car seat that made you look impossibly tiny.

Your first burst of laughter at the crinkle of a plastic bag.

Your first steps wobbling around  the living room.

Your baby voice trying out early words, “dada”, not knowing what it actually meant.

Your first attempt at counting: “one, two, three, five…” delightfully out of order.

So many firsts that I stopped keeping track, because they’ve all been captured in photos, in videos, in journals, and most of all, deep in my heart.

It’s funny how I used to tell myself I couldn’t wait for you to grow - to learn the next skill, to reach to your next milestone. I was eager to meet who you would become. Yet, here we are, 11 years later, watching you, once a fragile newborn, get ready to walk to middle school on your own. And suddenly the duality of parenting becomes so clear: emotions that are both profound and contradictory all at once.

Part of me looks forward to the small freedoms ahead - running a quick errand by myself while you stay home without a babysitter. Yet another part of me misses things I once thought I’d never miss at all: the exhausting “terrible twos (and threes),” the tears, the helplessness, and the moments when motherhood felt like too much and too heavy.

There will be challenges ahead, and there will be heartaches too. But I’ve learned to welcome them, because they are part of the story we’re writing together. Chaos will come, uncertainty will follow, yet inside them is a kind of magic, the kind that keeps me close to you as you grow.

Eleven years into this journey, I feel both brand-new and ancient in this role. It’s as if I’ve experienced so much already and yet nothing at all. But in this very moment, all I want to say is:

Happy 11th Birthday, my sweet boy.