approximately two thousand seven hundred
carefully sterilized bottles of formula.
These days you like to scoop up dirty snow by the mittenful
and shove it gleefully into your mouth
before I can stop you.
I have changed what feels like a million diapers
(actually also approximately two thousand seven hundred)
and left your bottom dry and ph balanced each time.
You still resist being changed
and never ever answer yes when I ask if you need a fresh diaper
as if sitting in filth is your favourite.
I have bought, cooked, sliced, and offered you
oh, let's just say two thousand seven hundred
bites of tasty fresh vegetables.
You are (even still) coming up with
new ways and words to refuse them;
today's being "yuck" and "please no."
I have washed, folded, put away, and wrestled you into
your clothes two thousand times
more or less (probably more, counting blowouts).
Last night you discovered your firetruck jams
(freshly laundered after a stinky accident)
and have already thanked me three times for cleaning them.
(You're welcome)
I have slept through your cries, snoring,
until your siblings bring you to me
and I roll over and make room for you for one last dream.
And you still call for me first of all
and cheer "good morning, mama!" when I wake
and kiss my bleary, sleep-lined face.
I have been led outside in all seasons
by your insistence, to say good morning and goodnight to the birds,
an unusual but not unpleasant way to bookend the day.
And you still delight over the magic of being out of doors,
you race to spy the moon for the eight hundredth time
as if it was the first.
I let you help me vacuum the house today
and it took six times as long, for you insisted
on carefully capturing each crumb with the upholstery attachment.
And still you did it, room after room,
painstaking and gleeful and triumphant
you endless adventurer.
