Dear Z,
You are four years old today, which sounds just about right and unbelievably WRONG at the same time.
I worked myself into a bit of a state this week, over your birthday. I wanted it to be perfect and I wanted to make you all kinds of homemade gifts, staying up late into the night obsessing over the details. I do this around holidays and I do this when I'm feeling things that I'm scared to really feel. I know better. It didn't need to be perfect. It is perfectly imperfect. Just like us both.
I know this is your birthday but I can't help but feel emotional in a very personal way every time it rolls around. This is the day I became a mother. Your birth was the most cataclysmic day in my life thus far. And so all day today as we celebrated you, I felt this internal stirring, a celebration of my own, a remembrance of what this day means in my life.
Baby Zoe, April 29, 2006At four, you are smart and chatty and silly and full of feeling and deeply invested in people and relationships. You love your sister and your friends and cookies and dolls and macaroni and cheese and you always wish I would let you pick just one more flower. You don't want us to call you "Boo" anymore, the nickname that has, for the last three years pretty much supplanted your given name, and we're trying to not let this break our hearts.
Super Zoe, April 29, 2010Yesterday as I pushed you in the swing, you said "Mommy, can you hold me and then let me go?"
And I thought That's what I do every day: hold you. And let you go.
Happy Birthday
Love,
Your Clueless But Hopeful Mama
13 comments:
Oh! How very sweet. Happy birthday, Zoe!
oh my! What a happy, silly, perfect girl.
Happy birthday to both of you!
Happy Happy Birthday, Zoe! And happy "day-you-became-a-mom," to you, too, J!
Also, I'm extremely jealous of the adorable babies you and CG make. Those girls are unbelievably cute.
You are so creative! Did you make that Z shirt? You are amazing! Z is super cute! Happy birthday Z (and Mom!!).
oh here i go again. sobbing. you and i are in the same boat. P turns four in about a week. i've been riding an emotional roller coaster as well. i look at P so happy for her, and i'm reminded of all the wonder and joy i shared with her because I also have I. reminding me every minute of every day of what it is to have a growing changing baby. I miss baby P and know i will miss baby I as well as they grow. I tortured myself and lay in bed last night and listened to voice recordings on my phone of P talking when she was about 2 years old. "More boobewwies"
Love the shirt! Sophie says Happy Birthday and wants to play again soon!
I always feel inside that the kids' birthdays are mine, as well. This was beautiful, and I love the squishy-face photos. I just want to kiss her smooshy cheeks!
"Can you hold me and let me go?" OMG OMG OMG! I got major chills reading that. What a question. That just says it all. Totally.
Happy Birthday, genius girl!!
Beautiful! You made me tear up. Happy Birthday Z!
Happy four years old, Z!
I always feel weird on my kids birthdays too, and especially Addy's, because as you said it's hard not to remember that it was a VERY significant day in your own life, as well. A different kind of birth, if you will.
Well, that went by awfully fast. She is perfectly 4, and yet... I can't believe she's FOUR. That means my OWN "baby" will be four someday soon(ish).
Happy birthday, sweet girl.
(And I always celebrate myself a bit too, on my kids' bdays.)
Breathtakingly perfect. (she is)
And so are you.
That was lovely.
Happy Birthday! I love the "can you hold me and then let me go" request. How sweet, and how true.
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