PURE LOVE

PURE LOVE
Holding my baby girl

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Letter to Kyli, January 1, 2013


January 1, 2013


Dear Kyli,

In 6 days, you’ll be 2 years old, and I can hardly believe it. You have done so much this year! You are walking, talking, STILL DANCING, and have developed your own special little personality.  We just got back from Keystone Colorado for Christmas, and you LOVED the snow. I was pleasantly surprised and loved watching your eyes light up as you got to play outside. One of the best feelings in the world is to watch your child’s eyes light up with wonder and amazement at the little things in life.

Tonight, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I decided to go check on you one more time before I go to sleep myself. I ended up crawling in your crib and holding you as you sleep. Very quickly, tears started running down my face. I realize that these moments that I have to just hold you and you LET me are getting fewer and farther between. And quite frankly, I’m not ok with that. It hurts your mommy’s heart to think that you’ll ever choose going to your friends house over hanging out with me, or you’ll let go of my hand as you walk towards the school, or that you’ll ever not let me kiss you in public. As a mom, I struggle day to day on how to be the best mom I can be for you. Am I doing it right? I certainly hope so. It’s such a big responsibility, and I only get one chance to do it right. I constantly struggle with time. Time is such a blessing and such a curse at the same time. Do I take an hour to myself to go to the gym to be healthy for you and for myself, or do I stay at home to snuggle with you for that extra hour…? Do I put you down in your crib at 8pm so that you can get all the sleep you need, or do I hold you on the couch for another hour and just savor it because I know it’s not always gonna last…? I am going to college to get my degree in Occupational Therapy, and I know it’s going to take up a lot of my time. And for what? To spend more time away from you, doing a career that I hope I’ll love a fraction as much as I do love spending time with you…? I constantly ask myself these questions, and it’s always going through my mind. It’s a guilty feeling that never really goes away. “Mom’s guilt” I guess is what it’s called.

You may not understand these internal conflicts until you are a mom yourself. The constant internal conflict of doing for yourself vs. doing for your child. I know in the back of my mind that the things I am doing for myself are in turn for you as well. I want to be in shape and healthy in order for you to have a happy healthy mom that’s energetic and is able to run around with you. I also know that you need all the sleep you can get, as you are growing and becoming more mature. And the biggest conflict I have, the school conflict, is one that I really have to self talk myself into these days. I want to make you proud of me. I want you to see me walk across the stage as I get my degree, and think “that’s my mommy! She did it, and I’M going to do it one day as well!” I want you to be a strong, independent woman who can take care of herself someday, and I have to be that person for you to admire first. I want to lay a path for you, little girl. A path that you will be proud to walk down one day, and that includes doing for myself. I’m just terribly sorry that I waited so long to do it, and that it wasn’t finished before you were born. It should’ve been completed, and I apologize to you for that.

I know you have developed your own personality and that you are trying to be little miss independent from time to time. It may seem like I lose my patience with you, and I have to “discipline” you by putting you in the corner from time to time, or not respond to your temper tantrums that you randomly throw whenever you don't get something that you want. You must think to yourself “why isn’t she picking me up when I cry?? Doesn’t she know I need her right now?” Please know that I am doing the best I can, and that it hurts my heart to have to give you a dose of “tough love” sometimes. (Gosh, if it’s this hard now, how hard is it going to be when you’re older and the situations are a little tougher??)

I hope you know how much I love you, and that I want to spend every waking (and sleeping for that matter) minute with you. If I could just hold you all day long and give you kisses, I think I’d die a happy woman. I think to myself “maybe if I hold her all day long, everyday, she won’t grow up as fast!” But unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. You have to grow up, and I have to sit and watch it happen. You are the best little girl in the whole wide world, and I wish everyone could see how lucky I am to have you. You make me a better person, and I promise you that I will do whatever I can to help mold you and shape you into the best woman that you can possibly be. But please, just don’t let it happen too terribly fast.

I love you so much it hurts,

Your Mommy