Once upon a time, or more specifically 9 years and three days ago a young (shh, quiet...we were youngish) couple got a phone call that changed their lives forever. The call was from Brad at LDS Family services, and he shared some very joyful news with them...news they had been waiting to hear for more than three years! A woman was set to give birth to a baby on Friday...it was Monday, and she had determined that she was unable to care for the child due to some life decisions she had made. Brad shared with the young couple (yes, I absolutely insist on this being mentioned time and again) the concerns that come with a high risk pregnancy such as this was. They were over the moon, all the years and tears that had passed seemed to melt away and they cried, for the first time in a long time, tears of joy. A baby, they were finally going to have a baby. You see, seven years was a very long time to wait for that precious gift to enter their hearts and home. Brad told them to go home and pray to see if this was the right one for them. They did, and a warm happy feeling settled in their hearts. Hours later they called him back and told him this was definitely the right thing!
Family was called and more tears of joy were shed. Then the magnitude of the event settled in. Monday to Friday was not much time to prepare for a baby to come. There were so many things to do! The nursery wasn't ready, no clothes had been purchased and they had no supplies...none, no diapers, wipes or formula! This young couple seemed to be running around like crazies trying to get it all ready (with much help from sisters and brothers)! Tuesday was a flurry of preparations! Then Wednesday came. The couple had things to do, the young husband had work to get to and the young (and beautiful and wonderful...oooh, wait i should quit making up details) wife was a temple worker (for those reading this that aren't familiar with the LDS faith, the temple is a place of worship where sacred ordinances are preformed, such as eternal marriages, and sealing families together forever) and her shift started at 5:00 am. She was out the door and on her scooter in no time and soon after he was out the door for work. While she was there her shift coordinator came in and said she had an urgent phone all and she needed to come right away. The young wife was not sure what was going on, but she followed obediently. She was then informed the caller had been her husband and she was supposed to call him right away! She ran to her locker to get her (super cool old school) cell phone and found she had missed not only calls from her sweetie, but also from Brad! With shaking hands she dialed her husbands number and when he picked up, all he said was, "it's a boy! We have a boy! he has come early and we need to go get him!" She broke out in tears that would make a crocodile's look small!
The young wife changed out of her white dress and into her regular church clothes and bundled up in her winter garb and headed home. With tears of happiness filling her eyes and streaming down her cheeks she miraculously made the journey home on her little trusty honda metropolitan! Oh what a sight she must have been to any onlookers, for she had a huge goofy grin that surely covered her entire face!
The young couple, now far more beautiful from the happiness and joy that radiated outward, reached home with in minutes of each other and they together packed an over night bag, looked at all the unfinished preparations and rushed out the door.
The trip from Spokane to the Tri-Cities never seemed so long! Whiles they travelled they started calling mums and dads and sisters and brothers and spreading the good news across the country....boy you should have seen their ginormous phone bill at the end of that month!
Then they were there at the hospital pacing the waiting room, back and forth back and forth! Finally the social worker arrived and they were introduced to the birth mother's sister. Because of hospital rules the couple, I mean, super cute and awesomely young couple, had to have someone with a wrist band with them to enter the NICU nursery area (the precious boy had been so excited to come he sort of went potty before leaving the womb and so they need to make sure he didn't breathe in any of the yucky stuff). They had a couple of names they had always loved for a boy and had pretty much settled on Seamus...a good strong Irish name, and then they saw him, a Seamus he wasn't, but a Javin he undoubtedly was! He had eyelashes that went on for ever and big beautiful brown eyes and a shock of black hair! He was by far the more precious, most perfect child born on the face of the earth EVER (no biases here, just reporting the facts)!
Their adventure was just beginning and what epic endeavor it has been (and continues to be)!
See, No lies here..truly the most preciousness ever to be!
By one year he was showing so much personality and a lot of chunky sweetness! He is lucky and shares his day of birth with his oldest Leavitt cousin, the adorable Nicole(:
At two, Javin was all about getting himself some of that cake...and if you look closely you can see I fib not, he was drooling all over it!
When he turned four he was more about the presents than the cake! And a dinosaur present was the be all end all. if you couldn't tell(;
Let me just say that his fifth birthday was by far the most ill nixon of them all! Days before his birthday he told his mommy and daddy he wanted a costume party day 'cause halloween was too fun and to far away to wait for. That still young and beautiful couple, asked their little prince or LML (little Mister Leavitt) what sort of costume would he want to have and he told them he wanted to be a pink bunny rabbit. Poof and voilá! One very pink and most bunniest bunny ever and by far the mostest redorable one ( redorable was how this cute bunny pronounced adorable for year)! and Those same cool parents made him the cake he begged all year for, a great white shark cake, all from scratch and from their own brains!! Sorry, just a bit of self aggrandizing there!
He was again very particular about the cake he wanted on his sixth birthday...Monster Truck race! Again those loving parents out did themselves and he was in awe! He was growing every year in size and personality! GreenDog, his ever faithful imaginary friend shared his birthday this particular year, and Javin spun many yarns about the grand adventures the two of them were having!
In First grade the super cool and fun teacher had a cool birthday hat for the kids to wear to show it was their special day! He was the "Cat's meow" that day!
Then Javin turned 8! And 8 is great, it is great to be 8. For members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 8 is a special age. It is the age that boys and girls who have been raised in LDS homes, or have been taught by the missionaries, decide if they want to get baptized. Eight is the age of accountability, when they can truly distinguish between right and wrong and are held responsibility of for their actions. The children make the decision, because our free agency is an important gift from Heavenly Father. Javin decided he wanted to be baptized to follow Jesus example.
The story of this wonderful young lad continues and I am grateful for the privilege it is to have him in my heart and family and home. He is a sensitive thoughtful boy who cares about the feelings of others and loves to make his friends smile and laugh. He is the source of my well hidden grey hairs and the holder of my heart (a job he shares with two others!)! I love him through the happy fun times and i love him through the difficult challenging times. Javin Christopher Leavitt is my favorite trouble maker, soup chef and story teller! I love every minute of this fast moving life of joy and trials! Keep being awesome my little Pistol Pete wanna be!
