A long way...

Hi Connor,

You are snoozing right now and its nice and quiet here in your room and your POD so I thought I would take this opportunity and write you a little note. Before we get too far along though, we need to say something very special to someone who means a lot to you. Happy Birthday Gigi! I know if you could you would be cuddling with her for a birthday present but maybe you can just give her a rain check on that. You know what though.... you share something with Gigi today even though you are over one thousand miles away.

Today is your birthday too. Well sort of. I mean its technically not your birthday (don't tell your Grandma that, she really looks forward to these days) but today you are four months old. Its hard to believe that you have been here with us for four months. Its even harder to believe that the three of us have been living here in this hospital for four months. We thought we would have scooped you up and taken you home by now but that just wasn't in the cards. The doctors told us that you were going to have a really hard time getting through that marathon heart surgery of yours but that once you were on the other side of that hurdle you would be able to just keep on trucking and hopefully get out of here quickly. I think everyone (your mommy and I included) saw just how well you were doing after that heart surgery and we thought that there would be nothing that could possibly stand in your way. It isn't that we were wrong, we just didn't know your timetable.

You decided to take a different path when you came to us. First you were in a hurry and wanted to be here way too early and we did everything we could to slow you down. You weren't having it. You had your own plans and we learned for the first time that your schedule would be the one dictating our lives. You showed up early and gave the world quite a grand entrance. Then we thought you would need a heart surgery within three days of your birth but again you had other thoughts. Turns out you made your heart work its own way for a full three weeks and held off that surgery until you gained weight and had yourself settled. Then of course we were told that you would struggle so much after the heart surgery. Well as I mentioned before you flew through that. Within a week you were closed up and people were already talking about getting you out of here.

Then your strong will (that is the meaning of your name after all) stepped in again and taught us once more that your timetable is the one that will run the show. You have certainly taken your time traveling down the road that followed your surgery. It has snaked back and forth a few times and has even gone backwards more than once. But something that your daddy had to climb a mountain in Africa to learn is something that you apparently knew instinctively when you were born. Sometimes you can't just run straight to where you are going. Sometimes you have to go back and forth until you are accustomed to your surroundings and then you move forward. If you move forward too soon you won't be able to handle the journey but if you take your time and follow the path of patience you can go a long way.

And that is what you have done in your first four months of life son. You have taken your time and ignored the urge to rush right up the side of the mountain so that you can make the entire journey and not be stopped short because you aren't ready. So take your time, weave back and forth as much as you want, just keep moving forward every time you are ready and we will be right there beside you to help if you ever need it. And if you ever start to look up at the top of the mountain that seems so far away just remember that you have already come a long way. Sometimes we forget that when we don't look back and only focus on what is in front of us but its important to remember that we are all on a journey with things in front of us and behind us and every once and a while its okay to look back and say "wow, look how much I've done already".

Keep up the good work little man. Four months old and look what you have done, look how much you have overcome, remember you have come a long way.

We love you Connor.

- Daddy