It is so hard to sum up the last year into words. You are one whole year old. I haven't written a blog post this entire year. (Though I do have one started and not finished about the day you were born and my amazing maternity leave with you.) I didn't write down every milestone and I haven't even started your baby book. Its not because I don't remember them (I promise I think about them everyday and often look back at pictures and videos on my phone and see how fast you have grown.) However, I wrote your brother a letter on his first birthday and that is one tradition that I must do for you as well.
There is so much that I want to tell you. First, you completed this family in a way we didn't even know we needed. When we moved out of our first house, I was very sad to leave the place where we brought your brother home, where he took his first steps and learned how to crawl up stairs. While we loved our new house and neighborhood, it never quite felt like home.....until you arrived. You brought us home when we brought you back from the hospital. Thank you for that.
There is a special bond between a mother and daughter, but its different than what I felt with your brother when he was a baby. The same love, but a different kind of more complicated bond. Its more complicated, but just as wonderful and just as hard to explain. The intense feelings of love I have for you, those are the same as how I feel about your brother. I love you both exactly the same....and completely different. Nothing will ever change that. I love you for who you are and who you will become, no matter who that is. But my hopes and dreams for you are different, because I can draw on my own life as a woman and realize what I truly hope for you.
I hope that you can be whoever you want to be. I hope that you never feel pressure to be someone/thing you are not. Because you are wonderful and the only Alexis Katherine Iosua in the world. Be her and no one else. I already know you are amazing. I can see it in your eyes, feel it in your hugs and hear it in your laughter. I can't wait to see who you grow into.
I hope that all of my fears for your future are unwarranted. Of course, I fear for your brother too, but its different. I hope that you never have to fear for your safety simply because you are a girl and someday a woman. I hope that your father and I teach you to respect yourself and demand that same respect from others. I hope that you will never have to know this same fear for your daughter.
My hopes for you are different than those that I have have for your brother too. I hope that you get to know what it is to be a mother (but know its ok if you choose not to and that it is your choice alone.) However, the love of a mother for her children is unparralled. You will never feel that love for someone else, not your spouse, not your brother, not even your father and me. This kind of love is indescribable. But it is intense...man is it intense. Its an intensity that will grip you. I hope you can handle the intensity of these feelings with grace and I hope that you know that you are not alone. I am here for you. For all of it. Always.
So my darling Lexi Girl, as you turn 1, while I am admittedly a bit sad that your baby moments are behind us and over these last few weeks I have shed a few tears mourning their disappearance, I am comforted by all that lies ahead. I want you to know, I am here for you, through it all. I will be honest with you and help you navigate this world so that you can be you, whoever that ends up being. Because you are perfect, you are unique, and you are a girl.
I love you,
Mommy
"Do you want to be the power in the world? Then be yourself." Ralph Waldo Emerson
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