It's incredibly difficult for me to look at you and realize that this very fall you will be putting on your very own backpack and hopping on the school bus.
More hard than before because you are truly the last child I will ever have that will shed the infant and toddler years for those of a small child letting go of my hand as she walks into her classroom.
I hadn't intended to have any more children after your sisters. I was done with the diapers and strollers and spit up. I had moved forward to ages where children actually don't run out into parking lots laughing because you are chasing them. But, then that day came. The day when I realized I must be pregnant. I marched straight down to get tested but knew before they ever told me. All of the decisions I had made to not have any more kids rushed through my mind as walked out to the parking lot holding a sheet of paper confirming what I already knew. I remember opening the door to my little Mazda and sitting down in the driver's seat with the news still bouncing around in my head trying to find a place to stick. As I stuck the key into the ignition and turned it, it was like I had turned some switch in my own head.
I'm having a baby.
There was nothing else.
I suddenly felt this overwhelming calm. If there is fate, if there is destiny, then both of those things quelled everything else and allowed nothing but the pure joy of your impending arrival.
And then you were here, quick as a flash.
You were the easiest little baby. Did everything the books said babies were supposed to do without any of the pesky issues I had with your sisters or that every other mother on the planet has with at least one of their offspring. You slept when you were supposed to sleep and ate when you were supposed to eat and pooped when you were supposed to poop. I could take you anywhere, oh yes, you were the most portable of children yet.
You made me recommend to every would be parent a third child.
Apparently parental bliss is located in the third child. The third child is happy and drooly and smells so good you want to inhale their very skin. You giggled and cooed as if on queue and welcomed sleep when laid down in the evenings.
Your sisters were and still are enamored with you. You are their very own little doll.
When I brought you home from the hospital, Amanda and Emilee were standing two stairs up from me looking at you. Emilee was smiling that smile she has when she can't think of anything to say but is just so very happy. But Amanda, she looked at you and then at me and said, "Oh Mommy, she is so beautiful."
And they were hooked.
Before you were born, I thought that Amanda and Emilee's bond was created out of their closeness of age. I told people that it was because they had never known a time when the other wasn't there and because of that, they are bonded so very closely. But I saw after you came along that their bond has nothing to do with time and everything to do with being Sisters. The three of you melt my heart more times than I can even begin to relay. Just walking into your room and seeing the three of you laying in bed reading together or playing on the floor and I am reminded that nothing is as strong as the bond you three share.
And you have this personality that is so different from theirs. From the very beginning you have been completely content to just sit and play. Your imagination never ceases to surprise me. The games you come up with. Just yesterday I walked into the kitchen and you had taken some spoons out of the drawer and were immersed in an imaginary world where these were not spoons, but a family.
You have such energy. And there are times when I just look at you and you are practically vibrating with it. You've always ran everywhere you went. Just run from one room to the next to grab a toy and then run back. You jump up when the tv tells you to and jump up and down or spin in circles. But the thing I love the most is how you sing. You just walk around all the time singing to us. Sometimes songs I know, sometimes the "la la la's" and sometimes songs you've made up yourself, but you are always singing something. And hearing that everyday is one of my most favorite things. You little voice singing... I would give up all the music in the world to keep hearing it.
Only this year have you truly started to come into your personality and shed your toddleresque habbits. You have opinions and you voice them. Oh boy do you voice them. To put it nicely, you are very strong willed :) You want to pick out your own clothes and put your own shoes on and close the car door yourself. You don't want help anymore for things I am used to helping with. But with this has also come this very sweet little girl who pops out and says "thank you Mommy" all the time or even better "no thank you" (mostly when I ask if you need to go potty). Or who tells me "Happy Da Mudders Day" at least once a day and then hands me some random thing she's found on the floor. And then, last week even looked at me questioningly and said "Happy Da Trini's Day?" and wanted the bead you had just handed me back.
But the thing, my favorite thing about you is your happiness. You walk around singing and skipping and playing and laughing. You are such a happy little girl. You make me want to abandon the dishes and play on the floor with you and your dinosaurs.
Today is your birthday.
Today you are four years old.
Happy Birthday Baby.
Love,
Mamma
