For The Love of Passie

WARNING:  This post contains material that will make sappy suckers cry.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

This is Tate now.

Cute, right?  Yah.  I know.  But you can tell me again that Kirk and I make pretty babies. 

This is that same pretty baby then.

And here he is again.

And again.

Ugh..this makes my heart hurt.  I miss those squishy cheeks so.stinkin'. much.

But, if you look in every one of those pictures you will see IT.  In fact, if you dig through his scrapbooks you would be hard pressed to find a picture that didn't have IT stuffed in his blessed little mouth.  Or in his hand.  Or two ITs...one in each hand.  Or one at least sitting on the table or counter in the background of a picture.

My purse, our couch, and every other nook and cranny of the house held the blessed plugs hostage.  They multiplied and bred in toy-boxes and under the seats of my van. 

It's how we lived our lives for almost 3 years. 

And I held onto those 3 years with everything I had.

Because Tate was my baby.  My last one.  Milestones like potty-training and sleeping through the night and giving up the bottle hurt my core.  Babyhood was ending.  And I was fighting it with everything that I had.

So it is possible that I let that sweet baby keep his beloved passie for just a wee bit longer than all the baby books said I should.  I didn't really worry about his teeth and the weird looks in Walmart.  Because him holding those plastic plugs in his chubby little hands screamed "BABY" to me. 

And then he grew up one day.  And his daddy (Grrrrr.....) put his foot down on the passie issue, spouting off some weird sermon about him going to prom with a blue sparkly passie stuck in his mouth.  And just like that...the passie was gone.

And I might have cried about it.

And threw the husband dirty looks across the room about it.

And I also might have continued to slip Tate a passie on the sly for 3 months straight.  But if you bring it up...I'll deny it, so don't bother.

Eventually, though, I moved on. 

And I forgot about the passie.

Until.

Yesterday the boys and I were busy working in my bedroom.  We were cleaning and moving some furniture, and I found this.

OH.MY.HEART.

Now....get past the fact that it was actually hiding under my bed, which is just testament to the fact that I NEVER clean under there, and that my mama is mortified about right now.....

But, y'all....I was a mess.
A puddle of snot and tears and mascara on the floor.
And my uterus hurt for more babies.
And then I remembered that I like to sleep at night.  And was over it.

But I did keep the passie. 

Shhhhhh....don't tell the husband. 
He scares easy.