Your birth came late one night without any warning, strong and fierce and a week early, without any doubt. I was eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios at ten o'clock at night when my water broke right there in the kitchen with an audible popping sound, as if to announce "I'm ready, it's time!". I stood there calling for your dad and shaking in anticipation and excitement because I would finally meet you and be introduced to the baby who kicked so assertively in my womb the past months. It's actually fun writing this post now, three years later, because nothing could be more appropriate to your personality than the way you entered this world: assuredly, determined, and loudly - crying instantly and making yourself known.
I can hardly find the words to describe what these last three years have been like with you. There aren't any words to describe the amount of chaos and fatigue and sheer, absolute overwhelm. I feel like I owe you a thousand apologies for all the things that I haven't done with you (as well as the blog posts that I've missed). Life changed the very second that you were born. I thought of your sister and how she would be so excited to finally meet you. I worried about the transition of bringing you home and how everyone would settle. I was told over and over how it would be different this time around because for one thing, I knew what I was getting into. Secondly, your sister existed and NEVER would there be a time where it was just you and me. All of these notions I carried with me to your birth, packed neatly in my hospital bag between diapers, blankets and a few cute outfits.
There are a few things that nobody told me. For a few long hours after your birth when it was just you and I, I fell in love with you so absolutely and with an abandon I couldn't be present for the first time around. I couldn't take my eyes off of you. We nursed together nonstop with no problems. You had tiny little elf ears that pressed flat on top, two little faint purple spots on your nose that got darker when you cried, and the thinnest layer of dark fuzzy hair. Your eyes were almond shaped like your dad's, your eyebrows his as well, and you were the tiniest baby I had ever seen in my life, at a little over six pounds. Only I could soothe you and it made my heart and my body respond with something so primal, something I didn't have the wherewithal to notice the first time around. I kept kissing you and smelling you (oh, your smell!) and cuddling you with an intensity that could only come from being my second child. It was just you and me, and the whole world. Three years later, I can still be transported right back to those first 24 hours where nothing else in the world existed except the bond between you and I. From the second your daddy placed you on my chest I have never been more sure of anything in my life: It is possible to love something so much that it hurts, a second time.
When it was finally time for our bubble to burst and to share you with the rest of the world, I got the privilege of introducing you to your sister. Your daddy and Grandma and Papa and Nono were there. Vivienne was so excited and in awe to meet you but at the same time looked at you as if she'd always known it was you. That first meeting between the two of you, and the last three years of watching the two of you together, has been the most gratifying journey of my life thus far. You love each other in a way that can't be forced, as if it was always meant to be.
As you turn three this year, I apologize my sweet girl, for all the things that I haven't been able to keep track of (including this blog). When I asked you what kind of birthday you wanted this year you replied that you wanted "rainbows". And family only. You are not the party lover that your sister is, so we will celebrate you with your favorite people: your cousins, your aunts, uncles, and grandparents. While you don't love public attention, you are deeply affectionate with those you love. In fact, your fierceness does not stop at love. I've had to teach you these past few months to stomp on the ground when you get mad because if you don't, the door to your bedroom gets slammed so hard it rattles the entire house. "I AM SO FRUSTRATED!!" has become a household phrase with you, standing there with your little arms crossed over your body, curly little tendrils dropping into your face, and a raised foot ready to stomp it out. I hear all time how competent you are my little one. You're only turning three but to most people you seem that you are at least five years old. You're big for your age and wickedly smart which can be hard for people around you to assume that you are anything less. As your mama though, I know underneath that tough intellect is really just my two, almost-three-year-old, who wants so badly to be in first grade with her sister but also won't give up her baby bottles. And you have spent many a timeout in your room, especially lately, but I love you in those moments of grief just as fiercely as I do any other. It's impossible not to, standing there naked with your little undies riding up one side, and your arms crossed over your marker stained chest.
Things you love: NOODLES (of any kind), french fries, milk, sleeping and cuddling, your bouncy horse Charlie, stomping in puddles, your sister, reading books and reciting them back, being at your sister's school, your sister, family movie night, riding your tricycle, cheese and black olives, anything your sister does or has,
It's funny how life works my dear Olive bird. What happens in the relationship between a parent and a child is an exploration and examination of what she thinks she has come to know as absolutes about herself. You are the child that looks nothing like me and yet you also challenge the most underlying characteristics of my personality. I'm willing to bend and accept these things because I cannot contain your spirit, not that I would want to. Watching you maneuver through life makes me think you're on to something. You take my world and you shake it up, turn it upside down and set it on fire. And suddenly I realize I kind of like it that way. And I would never have known that without you. I wouldn't have experienced this depth of feeling without you, and for that alone I am grateful to be your momma. I love you with everything I can, and when
