I. Love. You.
Above all, I want you to hear that.
I absolutely, over-the-top love you.
I love your energy. I love your newness. I love that you remember things and names and children.
Oh. Sweet. Heavens.
The energy thing?
That alone deserves a rousing in Jesus name…AMEN.
Oh. Yes.
It must be said that I full-on adore you.
I adore that you have elaborate birthday parties for your one-month-old. I adore that you remember to bathe your baby more than once-upon-she’s-starting-to-smell. I adore that you vacuum eight times a day.
I even adore the absolute horror it would be for you to know that just a short nine years later, preparation for preschool orientation will include you digging your yoga pants out of the dirty laundry, sniffing the preschooler’s hair and hand licking her face clean.
(Somewhere our mother is cackling hysterically.)
But do you know what I love and adore most of all?
Just how beautiful you are.
Because just like the littles you carry and stroll, everything is new.
Your love. Your passion. Your realization that a piece of your heart is now walking around without you.
And that is beyond beautiful.
So claim it, girl.
Claim. It.
Because someday, you’ll be older and the way you feel about diaper blowouts and pee on the floor is going to transfer to farts and skid marks and the blessed prayer of “Lord, please don’t let them call another kid a butthead at school today.” (Please note, however, the older they get, the more colorful the word. But the fart and skid mark thing? Always preciously legit.)
You’ll forget things. You’ll have trash falling out of your van. You’ll sniff pitts and bad breath. And you’ll wonder “How in the sweet world did I get here?”
But…
It will all be the same even as it is different.
You will still give all that you have and then some. You will still do every new thing with a knot in the pit of your stomach. And you will still wonder how it is that every time they walk out the door, you feel like a piece of you is missing.
Because at the end of the day, we are all just growing up together.
Step by step. Year by year. Stage by stage.
Covered in spit up and soccer game sweat and a little insecurity.
But that’s where grace steps in.
In the broken. In the doubts. In everything we think we are supposed to be.
Let’s promise each other we’ll both remember this…
It’s. All. Just. Grace.