The only Keigley baby who can claim the title “unexpected”.

The true baby of the family.  He still can’t pronounce the letter “r” and none of us are certain if he has ever actually slept in any variation of his own bed.

 

 

Otto Fox Wilder McDonald.

Named after Otto Frank and Laura Ingalls Wilder and his grandmother’s family and a wild animal.

Today he turns eight.

Eight years since I gave birth to my only child born in the state of South Carolina.

Eight years since I held a fresh-to-this-painful-and-beautiful-world newborn who shares my last name and my whole heart and who cost me extra weight and sleepless nights and held in his tiny fists both my fears and my hopes.

 

 

When he was a newborn, Otto Fox had some sort of condition whose name already escapes me.  For the first three months of his life, he had to be fed upright and he couldn’t be in a lying down position for at least thirty minutes after every. single. feeding or the entire contents of his miniature stomach would simply flow right back out.

And so, with five other children in stair step ages mostly, I sat down to nurse this infant Wilde Fox and then I held him upright for thirty minutes.  Sometimes with one hand while changing Piper Finn’s diaper with the other hand.  Sometimes while making breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Or snack.  Sometimes just quietly in his room.  Sometimes while watching Curious George with the rest of the renegades.

I knew from his start that Otto was my last.

And so the sitting still was less painful.  Or more.

This weekend Otto began flag football.  His first ever team sport.  Or team anything really.

 

 

He’s pretty into it.

His calf muscles are worthy of envy and his focus is intense.  Boy can run.

I loved watching him catch the ball and run the length of the field, one aim in mind.

 

 

When this boy wakes up, he finds me.  Like a little homing pigeon.   Still warm from sleep he always says, “I love you Mommy” and then I get a cuddle but if Ryder is around, the dog gets all the extra love.

I’m still such a fan of this EIGHT year old.  As big of a fan as I was at his birth.

It’s shocking that he is my baby, my youngest, the last of the band, and that he is already eight entire years alive.

I don’t know where those years went.

And I sort of do.

 

 

In parenting moments both glorious and regrettable.  In memories I was paying full attention while they were happening and in memories I was mom-glazed-over and missing out.  In sunshine and rain.

The years have passed as so many years before them.

I taught this boy to read and I’ve wiped a decent amount of tears from his eyes and I’ve watched him ride his bike without training wheels and  I was there when he hiked seven miles in one day.  I’ve given countless baths and thousands of tuck-ins.

I am grateful for each of those moments.

In my wallet I have a gift certificate from Otto for a foot massage.  I think he spelled it “message”.   I’ll just be keeping that little scrap of paper.  

HIs writing is improving.  He’ll find the key to pronouncing his “r'” soon enough.  He can read chapter books and he thinks math is fun.

Otto Fox — while your time is still kind of in my hands, I’ll be squeezing your face and kissing your cheeks and hugging your neck and there’s not much you can do to stop me.

 

 

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