My sweet baby girl. I love you so much. You are a light in my life, your laugh, your smile, your different voices and expressions and your big personality. You can be shy, yet quick to give a smile to a stranger. You love your doggie siblings, your many aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents and you talk about everyone you know all the time. You are currently repeating whatever the last word or words that someone says which can result in funny moments such as you saying “bye bye baby” to your uncle Shane.

You are just getting a cold, and even though you had a long nap, you were so tired as we strolled through Costco and Michaels this afternoon. You weren’t happy to sit in the cart, that wasn’t close enough for you, you just wanted to be held. You rested your head on my shoulder and I sang softly to you. My heart melts and my eyes tear up thinking about those moments. Why have I not felt like this so clearly before? Why did I so often see you as a task instead of the beautiful little human you are?

When we got to Panera you perked up after having some macaroni and cheese. (Like mother, like daughter) Not wanting to sit still for a moment you kept peeking over the booth trying to catch someones eye. Then you tried squeezing behind me to get down and run around but I wouldn’t let you past. So then you decided to push your face into mine, to lean your little body into me. So I took that moment and sang over and over “you are mama’s Simi, and I am Simi’s mama”. You pressed your ear to my mouth as I sang and your hair tickled my nose as it always does when I cuddle you close. These moments I hold dear. As every parent does for their child. I am so blessed to be your mother, so blessed to call you my daughter. I pray I can help you to be the strong, kind, empathetic, independent, smart and funny woman I know you can be. I want to remember this feeling. I want to write this down because there have been too many moments in this short time of being a mother that I have not enjoyed, have not been grateful, that I focused more on the negative than the positive. I forget that all of it, the good and the bad, are exactly what I signed up for! You didn’t ask to be born, I decided I wanted to be a mom. No one can prepare a person for these feelings, even if they say they can’t prepare you, it really is unfathomable until you are a parents yourself. It doesn’t matter how you come to be a parent, whether with your own biological child, or a child who might not have come from your body but who always lived in your hearts desire. When you are responsible for a tiny humans life, its creates some of the biggest extremes of emotions one can feel. And today was filled with the extreme gratefulness that you are mine.