My Amelia,
I haven’t been the greatest about writing letters to you or chronicling your every waking moment (especially in these last few months), but I hope this letter and the one I will write for each of your birthdays will make up for it.
For the last year I’ve been your food source, your snuggle pillow, your evil disciplinarian and your most loved and most hated confidant. I’ve learned a lot about you in this last year, about your daddy and about myself. This year has been the hardest, but the most rewarding year of my life. I’ve learned a few things the hard way and so have you. We’ve had lots of bumps and bruises along the way, but hey…we made it through a year sane and happy so I think we’re doing quite well.
When I was a little girl I didn’t really dream about being an astronaut or a doctor, about traveling all over the world and spreading world peace. I dreamed about being a mom. As a little girl there’s no way I could have understood what that meant, there’s no way until you were mine that I could have comprehended the love and the pain I would feel as your mother. I will admit that I do wonder sometimes if traveling the world would be more fun than changing your diaper or if spreading world peace would have been easier than getting you to take a bottle. Although I will joke about the other lives I might have led I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t have my life any other way.
In the last year I’ve begun a new life with you. I departed from a career that I enjoyed to do my life’s work as a mother and as a wife. I’ve started a new business that has taken me to a new level of creativity, one I have longed for and I am thrilled with its success and that I’ve managed to balance things. I’ve been able to watch you grow from a tiny newborn in preemie clothes to a soon to be toddler…who is still quite petite (18lbs 12oz as of yesterday). Every day I wonder where that tiny baby has gone, but every day I am greeted by your smiling face, your loving embrace and the joy of knowing that we’ll both learn and grow together that day. In the last year you’ve saved some really great stuff for when Daddy and I were both around; your first smiles, your first laughs, your first time to crawl, to stand on your own, your first words, your first steps…and the list goes on and on. I had always hoped that I would be able to experience those things, but they were all made so much sweeter by the three of us being together.
My heart is so full of love for you and for your father, for the life we have and for the life we’re building together. I remember the day so clearly that I found out I was going to have a baby. It was early on Easter morning and your daddy said that I smiled in a way that he’s never seen me smile before. I smiled because I knew you were going to be mine, I knew that I was going to be a mother, your mother. My heart grew that day and has every day since.
As this year comes to a close and my time as your food source comes to a end and as our snuggles and discipline are just beginning, I hope and I pray that each day I am always your most loved confidant and your most hated only on the really, really bad days…you know, the ones that I say “no”.
Dream big, or dream small. Regardless, find your passion in life and live it. I am and it’s perfect.
I will love you always my Amelia.
Love,
Mommy
