Month Twenty-Four

Happy Second Birthday my Love!



I've been looking at your photos for the last year, and although you look pretty much similar, your personality has blossomed into the most delightfully loving, funny, intelligent little girl I have had the pleasure of knowing. If I knew a year (and a week) ago that you would be this fun to be around, I may have wished away your infancy so that I could revel longer in this amazing period of discovery for you.



Just in the last month, you've learned to count to 10 in Spanish and English, and you know your body parts in English, Spanish, and everything from the neck-up (including eyebrows) in Guarani. You can match colors, you can name a hundred different objects that I don't remember even teaching you, and you mimic phrases, like "Oy!" that you learned from Mama, and "Tira pedo" that your lovely father taught you when you passed gas.



Sometimes I am just mesmerized watching you play, so imaginative, and I wonder what you are thinking. Your favorite lately is playing doctor with your stethescope from "Boo-boo Rescue" and you'll examine any injury anyone reports having, including a kiss to make it better. And you're willing to treat anyone, or anything, even strangers and animals. A lovely change from a year ago when you were more comfortable in Mama's arms, just observing the world around you.



One thing that people are continually amazed at is your tolerance for pain. On my birthday, you were outside playing with you cousins and fell and skinned both knees pretty badly while running. You did cry, but as soon as you were in my arms, you asked for Boo-boo- Rescue, and were tearless as I cleaned you knees, put antibacterial spray on them, and bandaged them up. And as soon as you were patched up, you were ready to play some more. Your Aunts and Uncles could not believe how the tears stopped the minute Boo-boo Rescue came out, and kept commenting how your older cousins would still cry like little babies with ouchies like yours. And yet, it didn't seem to phase you as soon as we were making it better.



Angel, I just have to keep telling you how much fun I have going out to play. In the last year, you have gone from timid and shaky on the playground to a complete monkey-nut. The minute we get there, you are either pulling me up the stairs to go down the slide with you, or running off any playing with the older girls, whom you had never met before, but all of them absolutely adore helping you climb up to play, and catching you at the bottom of the slide. Now, we can go on walks too, with you pushing the baby stroller I got you for your birthday, and stopping to pick flowers for your Tia and Jojo.



I can't wait to be able to take you to the Aquarium in Monterrey as well. I know you'll love seeing the "mish" and touching the animals there. But whenever I start to wish ahead of your life, I have to stop myself and remember to enjoy this age fully, because you will never ever be here again. And when I get sentimental about you growing older, you'll surpise me and fall asleep on the bed as I'm holding you, or run up and give me a big hug and kiss, and tell me you love me. You melt my heart.



My wish for you this month is that you are never afraid to express your emotions. I could go into the details and the whys of this wish, but suffice to say it's taken me a long time to figure out my relationship with the world, and for all my faults and issues, I think I've been able to salvage that core of my being because I was able to express to others how I was feeling. In most situations.



Okay, I know this letter is for you, about you, and only you, but I love how you've reacted thus far to me being pregnant too. I think a year ago you may not have been okay with it, but now when you see my bely you say "Hi Baby" and peer into my bellybutton, maybe hoping to catch a glimpse? You'll rub my stomach when we're sitting on the couch reading a book and say "Titi's baby," or "Good girl," and you are quick to bestow hugs and kisses to my bellybutton. I hope you love your Little this much after it is born, and I think you'll be very excited to see the ultrasound in a couple weeks. You may not be too stoked to share your room, but you've become so easygoing in the last year that I really don't anticipate too many problems. Aside from sleeping arrangements.



Boogie, I love you. I don't think you will understand until you have your own child how much your heart can swell looking at your offspring, but one day you will understand, and I'll be right there with you bawling, I'm sure. Happy Birthday my Angel.



Love,
Mama