To my sweet daughters...I love being your mother. I love every beautiful,sweet,infuriating,and exhausting moment. I love it even when I hate it.
I love the chaos,the volume,the agonizing repetitiveness. I love your four beautiful faces,your eight heart-stopping eyes,your eight soft hands,your forty sticky fingers and your forty sweet toes.
Harper I am so proud of you. You have gotten so good at reading and writing. You sing and talk all day long. You tattle too much,you worry too much,you narrate our lives.
You are beautiful. You have dark skin and dark eyes and your heart is full of light. You are very particular. You like things just so.
Your imagination is boundless. You are so very creative and imaginative. You have the best memory and the most discerning eye for detail of any child I've ever known.
You are changing right before my eyes. Gone are the chubby cheeks and the belly. Instead there are coltish legs and soon-to-be-lost teeth.
You are kind. And a wonderful big sister. I don't know what I would do without your help.
You are dramatic. Everything is a HUGE deal. You live full force,full strength,full fledged.
Sadie I am so proud of you. You are such a joy to me. Mischevious,sly,constantly perturbed,always observing.
You don't let much get to you. You just don't care about the things that don't matter. When you cry, I know something must really be wrong because you just don't cry.
You think you are big enough to not need a nap but you are wrong. When you are tired you get prickly and a little bit mean. I can read your emotions on your face so easily when you are tired...when you are worn out you don't hold your cards quite so close to your chest.
You love your sisters so much,but you also love doing things to get them worked up. You know all the right buttons to push.
You remind me of your daddy in so many ways. No fear,not very emotional, but the biggest cuddler in the world. The first to tell me you love me.
You are so beatiful. Dirty blonde hair,cleft in your chin,fair skinned.
Lucy girl you fill this house with squeals, with laughter,and with kisses. You find so much pleasure in everything. You run everywhere,laughter trailing behind you.
You moan when you eat because you love food so much. You jump, clap,talk jibber jabber constantly. You look like a doll.
Everyone falls in love with your gummy/toothy smile,your chubby thighs,and your ponytail.
You are constantly finding and hiding away crayons. Then when no one is looking you unearth the crayons and decorate every possible surface. You find this to be the funniest thing in the world.
You LOVE your binkie,bananas,strawberries,and waffles. You are four pounds heavier than your sister. You are the love of our lives.
Cate you are the love of our lives too. You are more prickly than your sister. You are timid where Lucy is wild. You take time to warm up but when you do you shower so much love, so many kisses.
You are small but mighty. When you make up your mind to do something there is no standing in your way.
You love bananas,cheese,waffles,juice. But sometimes you hate them too. You are mercurial,loving what you hated moments before and vice versa.
If I don't understand your baby gibberish you SCREAM at me and arch your back. You are already a consummate hissy-fit-thrower at 19 months old.
You are either insanely happy or dissaproving...it depends on the moment.
To my daughters...thank you for making me a better person. Thank you for teaching me how to love more than i thought I could,how to feel more frustrated than I thought possible,how to navigate the complicated waters of motherhood.
Thank you for getting me through some of the toughest,scariest times of my life.
Thank you for forgiving me when I am abrupt and impatient with you. I am learning too and sometimes I make mistakes as well.
Thank you for making me less selfish,more fragile,less and more worried all at once.
I can't wait to watch you grow. To watch you soar. To be there when your heart is broken,when you fall in love,when you make mistakes.
I look forward to every moment of it. Even the not so great moments.All of the moments are a gift. I love you, my daughters.
Love,Mama.
