Happy Birthday to You: Everley Edition: 7 Months Old

Dear Everley,



Hello there honey child. On April 21 you turned seven months old. I don't have a whole lot to say about your development in the weeks between six and seven months, except that you are moving right along hitting your milestones and having fun doing so, but I will report that I continue to be absolutely obsessed with you.

Teething is coming along just fine as evidenced by your refusal to remove this card from your mouth.

Seriously, one day I hope you'll read this and when you do I want you to know that I'm not sure anyone has ever made me feel utter joy the way that you do. I feel guilty putting this down in words because obviously you have a big sister and I can't possibly minimize how incredibly happy she makes me. She, who has literally changed the very fiber of my being. When Anabella was born she completed me.

Full of joy even though you are literally biting off my face.

You? You lift me up; you get under my skin and float me up onto a cloud happiness that hovers just above anything else that is going on in that moment. The feeling that I get when you smile at me? I can't. I can't explain it. It's pure, flawless, spectacular joy like I've never felt before.

I love this photo because it's so rare to see you sad. That one little tear lasted just a moment before you were happily giggling away at your sister and I again.

Where your sister challenges me to be a better person, a smarter, more patient, more inquisitive person - she's my little sage, my life coach, my professor - you are showing me how to laugh with abandon, how to let go of my worries and find a peaceful place of yummy delight regardless of what's going on around us or what daily stresses might be dancing around in my head.

You make me want to stop whatever obsessive cleaning and organizing I'm up to, throw my hair in pigtails and dance with you around the house. We do it every day with abandon and I will miss it so when you're too big to want to anymore.

Your Daddy calls you Sparkle and that is it exactly. That's exactly what you do and who you are. You are Sparkle.



My amazing little Buddha-baby, my bringer of giggles and lover of life.

I love you so much,

 

 Mommy

Mother's Day

Watching my big girl at the pool this morning and I know she's afraid to jump in but she did it anyway, three times, because I asked her to try. And it occurs to me what a massive blessing this really is, to have two little people who trust me implicitly to guide them in the right direction, trust me completely to keep them healthy and safe and love me unconditionally even when I ask them to face their fears. 



The exhaustion, the frustration, the stress, the vomit (OMG the vomit), the constant nagging worry that I'll have nibbling away in my brain at all times for the rest of my life. I would not change one second of it. Not one single second. Because being their mom is everything. I know it's out of vogue to admit that these days but fuck it, it's my day and I'm saying it. Being their mom is everything. 

 

Happy Mother's Day to all the women out there who give it all to their babes, every day, not just because we don't have a choice (and we don't) but because being their mom is all the gift we'll ever really need.