Sweet Sixteen (months)

Arizona,

Ah, my love. We’ve been having so much fun lately. You’re sixteen months old today (also Happy St. Patrick’s day!) and you are the light of our lives. Your daddy and I moved back to Tennessee from your birthplace Hawaii and we’ve been living in this sort of in-between space for the past several months as we navigate the transition. Nanny and Poppy have been letting us stay in their guest bedroom. It’s been so great to see your relationship with them develop while we all live together – Poppy keeps his door cracked so you can always push it open and make a mess of his bedroom. He’ll sit you in his computer chair and hand you pens or pieces of paper or DVDs to play with. And when he ventures into the living room you’ll always run over and reach for him. You sit on the fireplace together and he’ll call you spoiled, laughing because you tell him where to sit and he sits. With Nanny it’s a bit different – she’s busy cleaning or playing her computer games a lot of the day, but she keeps her bedroom door open and sometimes you’ll wander inside and sit on her lap, watching her play. You guys eat cereal together and she buys you pretty dresses and fun toys. Did you know, she’s the one who taught you how to blow kisses? For the longest time she blew you kisses without reciprocation, and then one morning you woke up blowing them back. You’ve spent the past week blowing everybody millions of beautiful kisses, and I cherish your innocence.

But there are lots of sad days for me during this in-between time. It’s hard to crave the future so much. I can’t wait to get into our own home (closing is in two weeks!). I can’t wait to be able to sleep with your daddy in the same bed again, to be able to cuddle and wrestle and relax. It’s dangerous for me to say, “I can’t wait,” though, because it always feels like I’m wishing life away. I wish I could just enjoy each day as it comes.

You’re the part of each day I enjoy, all the time. Always.

But I am sad a lot. I feel bad about it because I know it’s bound to take away from experiences in the future. I want to try and explain why I get sad, but it’s nearly impossible. It’s always a culmination of so many things.

My childhood was so grand. I always played outside with a group of friends in the trailer park. We’d have such a blast riding bikes or rollerblades or driving Barbies down the hill to see them crash or playing made up games in the woods.  We’d go swimming and play in the sand box and basically run wild. I never had a care in the world – I remember literally not having a single care, just playing from sunrise to sunset. I honestly enjoyed each moment.

And then some bad things happened.

When I was around seven, bad things happened outside my control and I lost it. My childhood – it just got eaten by the bad things, and I wasn’t that innocent little girl anymore. Probably anyone who tells you about who I was as a teenager would say I was innocent and naïve – but that was always an act. I’d pretend during every conversation not to know things, just so the people around me would think me innocent. Still to this day, probably most people see me as innocent and naïve. But it’s a lie – it’s a lie I’ve tried to maintain not just for other people, but for myself. I wanted people to think I was innocent so that maybe I still could be, so that maybe it could still be true. Because I loved who I was as a child, that carefree fun-loving person who saw the world as a giant playground, never thinking about the future, living always in the now. When the bad things happened, I hated what I turned into. I remember the first day I ever felt sad – the crushing sort of listless sad, the type where I could hardly will myself to do anything. I was still little, perhaps eight or nine, and I remember laying on the floor in the living room just staring up at the mirror that was on the ceiling. My mom asked me what I was doing and I said, “Nothing,” as she passed by. I had turned into someone who hated being noticed, who couldn’t bear anyone’s attention. At school I could hardly say words to people. I didn’t like meeting new people, I pulled away from everyone who spoke to me, I just needed to be left alone. Every time I was noticed, my heart would race and my hands got all clammy and my stomach hurt, and I’d spend days hyper aware of any interaction, any at all. When I look back on my middle and high school years, I hate them. I hate how scared I was back then, how threatened every stray encounter made me feel, how stifled I was. I don’t even consider myself a person during that period of my life – I was like a ghost, too panic-stricken to make any friends or do anything fun.

I hated being a ghost.

You know – it wasn’t until I met your daddy that I felt like I could move away from that persona, that I could become a person again. Bad things from the past kept me from having a present for a long, long time. Now whenever I crave the future, it makes me panic a little bit. Like I’m not living in the present again, like I’m back to being that ghost. So this in-between time, these weeks leading up to owning our forever home in Tennessee, it’s been rough on me. Brings all this stuff back to the surface, stuff I wish didn’t exist.

I see you now and I think, man. That’s childhood right there. Laughing all the time, exploring, learning and playing and running to your momma whenever something feels scary or new. You bring a piece of childhood back to me, and I am so, so grateful to you for that. I hope you never lose it, but I know deep down I can’t protect you from everything that’s coming. I just hope – well, I just hope that we can keep your sense of self protected. I hope that you never feel like you need to become a ghost. I hope that being noticed doesn’t scare you as much as it has me. It robbed me of so many good years, and I regret that all the time. I hope that you know you’re awesome. If people notice you, it’s because you’re good. You are my light, your daddy’s light, and I hope that instead of hiding away in the dark like I did… I hope you let yourself shine.

Happy sweet sixteen months, angel. Know you are loved.

Your momma,

Ashley

3 Months Old

Arizona,

Oh, precious girl. You’re three months old now and sleeping with your daddy in the next room as I type this. I tried to sleep too, but there are so many things in my head that I feel like you need to know. First of all, you make Mommy and Daddy so, so happy each and every day. Sometimes I’m sitting with you on the couch – you’re just looking around the room, staring at curtains or the ceiling and making baby coos at random intervals – and you’ll look over at me and smile with your whole soul behind it. It stops me in my tracks and I just have to marvel at you for a while, because you are so, so perfect. How can I even express how much we love you? Words aren’t enough. Words will never be enough. You brighten our lives and you can’t even talk to us yet; I can hardly imagine how I’m going to feel when you call me mama for the first time, or when you can actually respond during all the philosophical conversations we have together.

You’re rolling over now, from your back to your tummy. As soon as we lay you down flat you’re rolling to your side and then onto your tummy – you never lay still anymore! It was like as soon as you realized that rolling was a thing you could do, you decided you were going to do it all. the. time. We can’t leave you in your boppy anymore because you roll right out of it. The other day you rolled out of it and onto the couch cushion beside it and Mommy about had a heart attack. Thank God you didn’t fall to the floor!

Sweet Arizona. You’re growing so quickly and I can’t take it. Every time I look at you, I picture you as a toddler and then a teenager and then an adult. It’s amazing to me that I once was as tiny as you are now and that before I know how to handle it, you’re going to be in my position. God willing, you’re going to one day be staring down at your own baby and wondering how such a perfect being could exist in this chaotic world.

Here’s something you probably don’t know – I died during my labor to have you. I’m told that my heart stopped for a few seconds and I had to be revived. I remember telling your daddy that I couldn’t breathe and then lots of sounds as doctors rushed all around me, and I remember that during the in-and-out moments, your daddy kept telling me he loved me. This isn’t something we’re going to tell you for a long, long time. You don’t need to know it at all except for the fact that it might show you the tip of the iceberg of how much I love you. Dying is still a scary concept for me at this point in my life. It’s hard to imagine not being on this earth, hard to wrap my mind around what comes next. But I say this without reservation or doubt – I would die again and again and again as long as it allowed you to be here. I know it deep down, I think it every time I tell you I love you, and it’s a truth I hold close. My labor experience was harrowing and painful, long and drawn out, absolutely everything that could go bad did go bad… and I would do it all over again. I would repeat the process in an infinite loop as long as it led to you. You know those epidurals people get to numb the pain of labor? Well, I had to get that needle in my spine four times before they finally got it to go into the right location. And you know how you’re not supposed to feel the cesarean section? They didn’t numb me enough for that. I still remember what it feels like to be cut open and ripped apart. The sensation still catches me off guard sometimes and it’ll make me nauseated to remember. As soon as you were brought into the world, I heard your first cry and then they immediately put me to sleep to complete the surgery without my feeling the rest of it.

It’s all so hard to think about, and yet sometimes it’s all I can think about.

And I promise you, I would do it all again. I wouldn’t change a thing. It brought us you.

Your smile brightens my life. You’re enraptured during story times, curious eyes scanning each page of every book I read to you. When Daddy rocks you in the recliner, you settle down and your eyes grow heavy. Sometimes you fall asleep on our chests, and we kiss your forehead and try to get a selfie of it because it’s the most peaceful moments of our lives. Mirrors make you instantly alert; it’s like you’re looking for the answers to the universe in those things. Your shoulders and neck are getting so strong; it’s the most precious sight in the world to watch your little head bobble back and forth as you hold it up. You sleep like you don’t have a care in the world, and when you cry it breaks our hearts. You’re starting to giggle and it makes me want to talk and talk and talk so that you’ll never stop. So far, all I really know about you is that you baby like a professional, and I couldn’t be more in love. Your mommy has always had some self-esteem issues, but when you smile at me I feel strong. I feel like I can climb mountains and wrestle polar bears for you.

Point of all this is – well, you’re amazing just being you.

Mommy and Daddy sure do love your beautiful little soul!

Until next time,

Mommy

Thoughts at Week 29

Arizona,

It’s been a while since I’ve written to you. Back then we didn’t even know your name and I don’t think I’d been able to feel you move around or get hiccups or anything. But now you can hear sounds and you’re developing more fat so you’re much less skeletal and you’ve even got your own personality at this point. Week 29 and the time sure is passing slowly! We can’t wait until you’re big enough to survive out here – which you’re working on, so I’ll try not to be too impatient. You’re already head down and practicing breathing techniques for the real deal. It’s only a matter of time.

I feel like I want to say a bunch of cliché phrases to you right now that’ll inspire you to make the most of your impending time on Earth. Things like, “Life is short,” and, “Each moment is precious,” blah blah blah. But it’s all so true! I realize how many times people say those things and how roll-your-eyes it seems, but no joke. You’re going to blink your eyes one day, look around, and wonder when you turned into an adult. You’re going to look back on all your memories and hopefully find peace in them. Right now you don’t have many memories at all (do you even have any memories? probably not…) but time is going to sweep you away and before you even know what happened, you’ll be older, wiser, and well on your way to having children of your own and making your own way in the world. I know, I know, I didn’t believe any of this when I was a child either. But as you are now, so once was I, and as I am now, you’re sure to be.

I want to be frank with you for a moment, woman to future-woman. I have a lot of memories that hurt me to think about, and sometimes those memories will bubble up from my subconscious like little pustules of negativity or self-doubt. And no matter how hard your daddy and I try to prevent it from happening, I’m pretty sure you’re going to have some of those types of memories yourself. You’ll undoubtedly experience conflict where you’ll wish the world were a better place; you might have your heart broken a time or two by people you love; you’ll bicker with friends and not know how to repair those bonds. Life is pretty brutal sometimes, and there are bound to be some let downs.

But you know what helps?

What really, truly helps?

Hope.

I know, another cliché. Another roll-your-eyes word. Your daddy will probably roll his eyes when he reads it. But again, it’s so true! I want you to know that you can make a difference in this big ugly world. There’s a lot of bad, but guess what? There’s a lot of good too, and if you try your best to be a bright spot in others’ lives, if you truly try to see the positive side of things and share that side with the people around you, then you’ve already made a difference. It always saddens me when I hear people say that they can’t make a difference, because literally everyone can. Imagine, if you will, a world where people believed in smiling at strangers, or a world where people sat down their smartphones at cafes and struck up random conversation with the strangers around them. Imagine tiny little moments of kindness you witness throughout any given day, whether it be the person in line in front of you buying your coffee for no reason at all, or the doctor you visit sitting down with you and putting some genuine attention into your care, or even someone holding an elevator door open for you. All these little things… imagine if everyone did them. You can do them. You can be the spark that ignites a chain reaction. One smile, one listening ear, one piece of gum given to a classmate can brighten someone’s day and make them want to brighten another’s.

The world can be a mean, heartless place, but only if everyone lets it be like that. Don’t let it.

Your daddy often goes out of his way to help and/or brighten strangers’ days. He’ll probably protest and say he doesn’t, but he absolutely does. I believe with all my heart that one person can make a difference in the world, and I pray that you can find it within yourself to believe that as well. Everyone matters, and it’s up to each individual to do the best he/she can to pave the way toward a brighter, less ugly tomorrow.

There’s something about childlike hope and optimism that should be nurtured until they strengthen into hope and optimism that transcend life stages. If everyone were more childlike in their regard toward other people, then this world would undoubtedly be less violent and less scary. I’ve been called childish before, but I can’t say I believe that’s an insult. If anything, viewing the world through childlike eyes keeps me sane. It helps me to remember that everyone matters, and that all people deserve second chances and random smiles from random passersby.

This letter has probably gone off in loads of different directions, but really, the message I’m wanting to deliver is this: I sincerely hope that you never lose faith in the world and in the people who live in it, because that faith can move mountains. Oh, I just can’t wait to meet you and learn from you and grow with you. I can’t wait to see what ripples you create in this world. It fills me up, absolutely fills me up, this blossoming well of joy when I think of who you are and of who you could be. I can’t wait to read books with you and watch you wrestle with Dustin and throw you in the pool to teach you to swim (that’s how it works right?). I can’t wait to make funny faces at your newborn self and watch your nose scrunch up. I can’t wait to chase you around the house and eventually introduce you to your cousins.

Love you, kiddo,

Your Mom