glorious smiles

The past few days I have just been revelling in Rowan's smiles. I love all of my children's smiles, and if you're a mom, you know that every smile melts your heart. For Rowan, who for the better part of 2 years barely made eye contact, his smiles melt me just a little more nowadays. He has been looking straight at us and grinning from ear to ear, hugging us, wanting to be with us. His eye contact is remarkable, which for me is a turning point because it makes me feel like I am connecting with him when there aren't words. Soon I will take a picture of his beautiful smile and post it on here for all to see.
In my last post, I talked a little bit about "the fog". A friend of mine wrote me recently and told me of another way that someone put it once: "There is this perfect child on the other side of a dirty window that you just can't seem to clean. Sometimes you can't see through at all, some times you squint and get a glimpse. But, so help me, I will tear that window out of the wall and pull that child out."
That is how I feel. I long to see this little boy's smiles accompanied with words like "I love you Mommy," or even "I have to go poop", or I'd even take "Mommy, I just ate dog poop and it was yucky." I'd even be happy and probably jump up and touch the ceiling if he called me fat or something! I'm telling you, there is going to be a day like this and I hope you come back and see the photos, because there are going to be a million.
Today we ran out of Ro-safe food so he had to have almonds and black beans for breakfast and lunch. I caved and gave him a bite of orange, which isn't good for him for a number of reasons that I dont have time to write; the main one being that it is too much sugar and if there is a yeast issue in his gut, sugar feeds yeast and thats bad. But he happily ate those black beans and almonds and drank his lemon water! I never thought I'd see the day when my 3 year old willingly and happily ate totally healthy foods, much better than even I eat. Praise God! Now if only I could get my two year old to eat vegetables...