Happy Birthday -How Many Candles?

 

 It feels to me like I have been a mom forever, as if my entire life has been devoted to a child.
My path to parenthood wasnt ideal, in all honesty what fourteen year old decides that instead of parties they would rather change diapers. 
Although I knew that I had options I also knew that the baby I was carrying felt special (but I imagine most parents feel that way). I was determined that he would have only the best, I put him above the rest of the world and my entire life revolved around a dark haired boy. I had ample examples around me of the teen parent that I did not want to be and although it was hard and challenging at times I never allowed myself to fail. To this day I still feel my heart skip a beat when someone says the word social worker (often times much to the amusement of my mother). This is really quite foolish actually when you consider that to become a mom to my middle children it involved working with a lot of social workers, but as a teen mom my biggest fear was messing up, ruining his life and losing him to the system. Even as recent as two weeks ago in the hospital when the doctor said "I've made arrangements for the social worker to come see you" I immediately defensively demanded to know why ... um hello Einstein, your kid was just diagnosed with cancer, perhaps they want to make sure that your not losing your mind completely (this is clearly a childhood fear that I must work on lol)
In a way Nick and I grew up together, I celebrated my sweet sixteen with my two year old and at six Nick walked me down the aisle and "agreed to share me" at my wedding (giving me away was aggressively opposed).
I joked a few days ago that I am going to have a button made that says "I am the mother" because I am growing tired of answering the "and you are....." question each day at the hospital which is almost always followed up with the "I thought you were his sister" comment.
Recently I have been experiencing an odd sensation, the other day as I watched Nick vomit for the millionth time my eyes no longer saw pimples and chin whiskers and instead saw the plump cheeks and dimples of the toddler that existed long ago. Instead of hearing "mom please help me" in the pubescent voice that delivered it I instead heard the high pitched sound of a stuttering toddler.
My mind knows his age but my heart simply doesn't care.
Today is Nicks birthday and his age can be calculated in so many different ways ~ 15 years ~180 months ~780 weeks ~ 5,475 days ~ 131,475 hours ~ 7,889,231 minutes or 473,353,980 seconds but somehow in my heart he has never aged .... he was then and still is now .... my baby.