Dear Addie:
Right this moment, you are sleeping in your little crib in your room, num-num in your mouth, your music mobile playing the Clair de Lune, your little yellow blanket tucked snugly around you. I imagine your little mop of golden curls are flopping carelessly around your sweet face and your long, dark eyelashes are sweeping down like raven feathers...all the while you are dreaming sweet baby dreams. I wonder if you are at the beach with me still, in that twlight dream place, talking about your desire to hug the moon.
Lots of moments with you this weekend-just walking to the water, your delight with all the neighborhood doggies you got to pet and hug and kiss...and that mind-blowing lot of "sleeping cars" (you noted that the ones driving on the road "woke up" (cars awake!)). I can't forget the image of your little blond curls ecstatically dancing up and down as you ran down the sidewalk urging me to join your galloping (how could anyone deny you?). And all the delight of being the center of attention for once (Gillian tried a few times to wrangle that from you, but you stood firm) today when people came to celebrate with us on your special day.
Sometimes I worry that I can't love you any bigger or that I can't squeeze out any more time for you in my stacks of endless responsibility and worldly preoccupation...but in case you were wondering, today, like so many days, your innocence and wisdom made me stop still and breathe some moments in with you. This weekend I added a respectable few pages to my "ever after" book of motherhood. If you are the last baby I have, I want to try and remember all of it-the way your sweaty little head smells, how your cheeks flush so red in the heat, how you have perfected the scowl (and noting our hurt from the scowl) how generous you are with your hugs and kisses ("Mama HAPPY now!") to make it all better. I want to remember your appreciation for the tiny bits of this life (like a colorful drop of paint on blacktop, ants!, a raindrop, crescent lights on the wall at the grocery section of Target that, to you, are HAPPY and Sad (when you do this, you perk up and smile and squeak "happy!!!" and stick your lip out and slouch and do a silly low voice for "sad")... how I love and love and love you. I didn't think I had enough room in my heart to fall this much in love with yet another person, but here I am, so in love with you. I have realized that a person's heart can ALWAYS grow bigger.
Today is your second birthday. I don't know where the little grains of sand go, but here we are 700 days later. And you have become so beautifully... so conscious, and smart. You are so chatty and verbal, and so able to express yourself. And the singing! We have high hopes for you and for music... You are our little michief maker and dually our drop of pure sunshine. You have great empathy and compassion for others, and love to demonstrate that daily (one beautiful walk home from the park, for example, you hugged my neck and kissed me all the way home). Even if someday you feel forever engulfed in Gillian's shadow, remember that you are your own sun, with all of us orbiting around you. You are equally adored.
So, on your second birthday, my little love, I want to tell you how much I value these sweet days of summer with you-of all you are and all you will be. Every morning when you were still growing within, I said affirmations to the universe for you-that you would be kind, that you would be compassionate, that you would be joyful, that you would be moral, that you would be discerning, and loving, and brighten the world of every person you touch, that your life would be full of wonder and love, and that you will stay safe from irreparable harm. So far, so good. May our best days lie ahead, my precious girl.
Love,
Mama
