Maybe Time Running Out is a Gift

Dear June,

You are one year old tomorrow. Yeesh, this goes so fast. Childhood. Motherhood. Life. Just the whole thing. I kept thinking all day about this day last year. It felt like the longest day of my life, just waiting to go to the hospital at 6pm. We went and got chipotle, which I ate 2 bites of because I was so nervous. I wrote you a letter in my journal. It was about how excited I was and how scared. It was more like a written prayer for your birth. I painted my nails. I ate leftover cake from our baby shower the day before. I remember so much of your birth still, I'm sad that those memories will become hazier with time. But the birth was really just those few moments, now we've had so many moments together. Here are some things about you right now:

-You are getting in to everything. You got into the garbage can and ate raw biscuit dough. You were so happy sitting there on the floor with your dough. Like a puppy. You are basically a puppy right now.

-You LOVE Caesar. Sadly, that love is not reciprocated at the moment. When you squeal with happiness when he walks in the room, he immediately turns and walks out of the room. But he loves you when you drop food from your high chair.

-YOU DANCE. This is the best thing. It's really more of a weird hip thrust right now, but it's to the beat and we love it. We dance everyday and to everything. You especially love Cardi B and the "letter of the day" song from sesame street.

-Everyday I see you learn something new. Study something intently. When you repeat a word back to me, like "dog", it takes my breath away. You let go of one of my hands and tried to walk today. How dare you.

-You are a talker. Loud. Opinionated. Dramatic. I can't imagine where you get this from.

-Motherhood for me a constant tug between being so excited for you to get older and wanting to stop time so that you stay just like this. That bittersweet tug of war that will go on forever.

-Listen, I have to tell you: I don't think your toddler years are going to be easy. Some days all you do is yell at me all day. You bite me. You make yourself known, let's just say. But I do think, if I can get you through this and teach you some social cues, you are going to be the coolest little person. I see it already. Your humor and your personality is so fun. But, yeah, the next two years may be a bit of a nightmare.

-Right now my big challenge is remembering that you are not a "to do" list item to be completed. I hate to even put that in writing because I don't want you to think you weren't my everything. You were and are, but sometimes I just wanted to look at meme pages on instagram for a couple hours. I'm only human. As I came out of your newborn time and you turned into a little baby, I had a hard time with this. Somedays I am so good at it: we read countless books, I crawl around on the floor with you, we invent games together, and I'm not counting the minutes to bedtime. But other days we stay in our pjs all day, I forget to put my phone down, and you get into the garbage and eat biscuit dough.

-I named you for summer and I'm coming to the end of my first one with you. The colors on the mountain are changing and then I look down at you and see a newborn, where there is really a 1 year old baby.

One year as your mom. I realized something recently; we were at the beach and I was showing you the waves and talking about the ocean and it hit me: you won't remember this. These memories we're making right now, they're really just mine. I'll tell you how we were best buddies and you went everywhere with me. How you loved your dad so much, you cried when he facetimed with us from out of state and flipped the phone over looking for him. You won't remember that, but we will.

I have not been perfect at this. In fact somedays I know I've been so bad at it, but I have loved you. I held your little body close to mine while we looked out at the ocean from the shower in our hotel room this summer. You and me, skin to skin, as close as we ever will be. I will never forget that. I think of it almost everyday. And even though you won't have the memory, I think we carry love in our bodies. We are made of it. And I hope more than anything else I've ever hoped for, that in this last year with you, I have knit so much love into your being that you will carry it with you always.

I love you so much, little bug. Happy Birthday!

xoxo, mom