Tomorrow you turn one. I write that with shaking hands and tears in my eyes. I wish I could turn back the clock and have it be 2013 again. I wish I could be in that dimly lit labor room, rocking back and forth as the contractions moved you closer and closer into this world.
I wish I could have a do over.
Your whole first year has been so hectic and so chaotic. You entered this world a mere ten days after someone I loved dearly left it. And you entered a world of chaos. Unfortunately that chaos is still swirling around you.
But the thing that amazes me the most about you is that you are a calm in the center of it. Your sisters may be running around you screaming. The dog may be leaping over you and the cat wagging her tail in your face. There might be pipes bursting and mice mating and life crumbling all around, and yet there you sit, quiet, smiling, my little beacon of peace.
This might be an odd thing for a mother to say, but from the moment I met you, I have wanted to be you. I have craved your peaceful spirit, your calm, contented smile, your ability to stay constant in a changing world. It’s a gift. Take it from someone who has never had that calm disposition, it is a true and real gift.
Over the course of the last year, you have become my touch point. I’ll be overwhelmed with all that is going on, and I’ll come over, and I’ll pick you up, and I’ll smell your sweet baby head, and I will return to my center and to my calm and to myself.
Just this evening when I left to run some errands, you were sitting in your high chair having just finished your bottle. I reached down and grabbed your face in my hands and I kissed your not so little cheeks, and your whole face lit up as tears streamed down mine.
So on the eve of your first birthday, I just have one wish for you. That you remain truly and utterly who you are in this crazy and chaotic world. That you don’t let it change you or jade you or make you into any other version of you than the one you want to be.
Because you are a gift. Purely and simply and totally. You are my gift.
