my dearest, future Jasper

Dearest (future) Jasper,

If you ever wonder how much a I love you, rest assured... I love you a lot. A ton, in fact! Quite possibly, I'll love you more than you ever know, and I mean that seriously. I love you to the moon and back, times infinity. I love you with all my heart and soul and would gladly give my life to make sure you're safe, warm, well-fed, and loved.

By now, you're probably a wonderful teenager, one who's intelligent and creative and smart and courageous and loving and brave and athletic and social and talkative. And you're kind... Even from the youngest of ages, you have been so kind-hearted (that was displayed yet again today, at the Chick-fil-a play place as you kindly told a bully that he wasn't being kind to your little brother. And then you kindly told him to stop. And he more or less obeyed you.) You're so kind.

You're probably the heart and soul of every room you walk into and you're the social guy, the one who gets invited to parties and the one in whom people confide in. I pray that you'll love God fiercely and that His Word will be your starting point and your ending point in all things pertaining to life and death.

But you may also get upset with me (I'm sure this will happen from time to time) because I won't let you do something that you want to do or b/c I'm making you do something that you hate.

And in this moment, when you're upset with me and thinking to yourself, "Does my mom even love me?"

I want you to read the following and then adamantly tell yourself, "YES! A million times YES! My mom loves me like crazy." And this is how you know that I love you like crazy:

Within the last 3 days, I've been down on my hands and knees, cleaning up poop for you.

While this doesn't sound too extraordinary, future Jasper, let me remind you...

At the Kells house on Saturday night, you found several big, squishy green caterpillars. You instantly fell in love with them because your heart is as big as Montana, so Mrs. Kell got you a tupperware and you put your caterpillars in it. Several hours later, as we were leaving the Kells, you dropped the tupperware, the lid came flying off, and the caterpillars and an amazing amount of poop came flying out all over Mrs. Kell's beautiful rug. I drop to my knees, gently retrieve your caterpillars, and then continue to clean up their poop for you. I thought this was the end of the caterpillar story.

Nope.

Today, I ran upstairs to grandma and grandpa's house to throw the swim suits and towels that we used at the Kells house into the washing machine. As I put them in the washer, a random tupperware that I was unaware of flew out of one of the towels and into their kitchen. The lid flew off, caterpillars flew out, and poop flew everywhere (sorry, mom!). I instantly stop what I'm doing, drop to my knees, gently return your caterpillars to their tupperware home, and start cleaning up their poop. For the 2nd time.

Why on earth, 2 times in 3 days, did I drop to my knees, care for these pests that so totally gross me out, and clean up poop?? Not even your poop, mind you. Not even your brother's poop. Your caterpillars' poop. Why did I do these things?

Because, my darling son, I love you, body and soul.