Baby Mine

From your head down to your toes,
You're not much, goodness knows.
But you're so precious to me,
Sweet as can be,
Baby of mine.
~Baby Mine, Allison Krauss

Layla,

It’s been awhile since I’ve sat down and put words for you down.  And so much as changed since the last time I wrote to you, your birthday.  You were just a year old then, still a baby. 

Now you are a little girl, hurtling through life at light speed.  You count, you pick out letters, you play, you eat everything you can get your hands on, you color on everything, you don’t sleep until you’re exhausted.  You argue with me.  All. The. Time. 

You stand in your bed in the mornings, and yell for Mommy!!, and for food, and for your baba, you tell me no more than you should, you push boundaries, try to run in the street, want to eat candy all the time, and there are days where I swear I can feel the gray streaks growing in my hair. 

If you’ve been listening, you’ve heard Mommy and Daddy use the words gifted, special, and advanced.  You have been evaluated by doctors, you’ve astonished nurses, and you have shocked people with that brain of yours.  (Can I take credit for your brain??  Did you inherit that from me??)  While you are just being you, the adults around you have tried to quantify what you know, where you are at, what you know.  Just when I think I have it figured out, you show me you’ve learned something else, and the process starts all over again.

I am inherently curious about your smarts.  I’m curious about all of you, about what goes on behind those blue eyes, what thoughts you are having, what new thing is imprinting on your brain.  Of all the things I know about you, your favorite color, favorite food, favorite toy to sleep with, favorite song to dance to, I do not know, and I will never know, what goes in your head.  I know for a fact you inherited your curious steak from me, and that same curiosity will always wonder about your mind. 

Right now, you are too little, your brain, no matter how smart you are, too little, to test you for giftedness.  There are things you just haven’t learned yet, that will impact testing.  And while I might be curious to see just how smart you are, all the testing all the experts we could find, won’t tell us with any certainty. 

I admit, I was a little disappointed when that reality sunk in.

And then I realized… you are exactly who you are meant to be.  Whether you are gifted or not, whether you inherited my brain and have turned it into something better, or not, you are exactly how you are meant to be. 

No matter what any test you may or may not take may say, no matter what any expert may or may not tell me, I want you to remember that.  You are who, and were made, exactly as you were supposed to be.  You are perfectly imperfect.

And from the top of your head, topped with blonde curls that I adore, to the bottoms of feet that are tiny echoes of mine, I love you.  I will love you no matter who you may grow up to be, no matter the person you will grow into will be.  I love the wild child, I love the snuggly child, and I love the bright eyed child learning her numbers and letters.  I have loved you since before you were even conceived, I loved you in the darkest, blackest moments of my life, and in the most golden and glorious moments.  And that is never going to change.

~Mommy