To: Bean, Love: Mommy | Part I

My Dear Nollie, 

Four years ago my life changed forever because you entered into it. You will know this love one day, I hope, and you will love as intensly and selflessly as I try to.  

There is no conceivable, measurable amount to the depth of my love for you.  It is farther than the farthest galaxy and deeper than the deepest parts of the oceans.  As I have told you before and will tell you again, it is in every color of the rainbow and can be as loud as a lion or as soft as a whisper.  Sometimes my love feels big to you and sometimes my love feels small to you but we carry it together because it is with you that it came to be what it is.  I can't know if I had this love before you and it grew brighter or if you brought it with you through your grand entrance but it is ours.

You told me, not so long ago, that your "most favorite" part about being a baby was being naked with me at the hospital because it was silly and funny and special.  It's not my place to say what you remember and what you don't because in this instance, memory has nothing to do with the message.  You know, as I do, that birthing you was as breathtaking for me as it was to be you on that very day.  

My bean, I had no idea that in an instant, my love and my heart and my existence could be completely transformed into unrecognizable territory.  Who I am as a mommy is greater, fiercer, braver, funnier, sillier, and smarter than who I ever was before.  I had been shaped and molded, fine-tuned and oiled, inspired and intrigued in a matter of seconds.

I had always had these ideas in my head about the importance of a nuclear family; a family that lives together, eats together, and sleeps under the same roof every day of the week.  A nuclear family was something I wanted with passion and vigor.  As you know, it has not been this way.  Some days have been difficult, some have been crawl-out-of-my-skin unbearable, but most days give me blocks that I use to build me a new way of being.  It is our life, as perplexing and unpredictable as it can be, and I am trying to teach you to embrace it in all it's non-traditional glory.

 It has been these four years that have proven our strength and resiliency as a duo.  Through my discipline and rules, you have found a way to be my best friend.  As unmotherly as this might sound to most mothers; I look to your opinion when I make nearly every decision of my life.  I value your four year old intelligence and wit, your untamed heart, and your unsoiled-by-society perspectives.  My favorite quality about you is that you are as intuitive about human behaviors as I am, so much so, that if I am distracted while you are speaking to me, you have been known to say, "What did I just say mommy?  Because you weren't listening."  And when I tell you to be careful with new toys, you have been known to offer age-old wisdom: "It's just a toy Mom.  A toy. It's okay if it breaks." 

I have tried to be as transparent as I possibly can be, as a mommy and as a human being.  You've seen some of my ugliest traits, you've witnessed me at my weakest, and you've triumphed with me in the most mundane celebrations (mommy got her oil changed finally!).  We have had some challenging roads and there's no doubt we will travel more challenging ones in the future but know that I will always try my best to walk alongside you while we endure them together.  I will always respect you and your independence while balancing my mommy instincts of what you are ready and what you are not ready to experience.  

To know you is to love you Nollie Bean.  You are spunky and funny, kind, stubborn, grateful, and creative.  Watching you grow and change into the "big girl" that I'm proud to call my daughter has felt like my privilege, my gift, the ultimate adventure in my learning and life.  

Here are some of my favorite qualities about you: 

You are inquisitive and curious and intelligent. 

You are a collector of trinkets.  

You love strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries and are known to eat an entire carton in one sitting.  

You are not afraid to tell your dad and I that grandma makes better "chopped chucky" and oatmeal or that the toy you were just gifted should go to the Goodwill.  

You move your body to any kind of music.  

You are tentative around loud and abrasive persons.  

You ask permission, most times.  And you say your apologies even if it takes a time out to say it.  

You'd rather be outside than inside.

You could take or leave TV. 

You already know how to devour a good book.

Critically thinking is one of your strongest assets and I hope you never lose it. 

Sometimes I watch you sleep; your little lashes flutter and your mouth a perfect pouted rosebud.  In those moments of sheer silence I think of all the things I can't give you yet and all the areas that I am lacking in your perfection.  But Bean, I am confident that one day when all is said and done, we will both know that we have all we will ever need.