A love letter to my daughter.

Dear Claire,

Thoughts of you drew me from the cozy space in my bed next to your papa, listening to him breathe in and out in a soft, comforting rhythm, to the jumbled keystrokes of his laptop. My thoughts of you, my precious angel, were reeling and the urge to get it all down before they got away from me was overwhelming. Life these days have taken a turn and I find myself down a path I don't recognize. You are a stranger to me, yet you grew inside my belly and, deep inside, I know that I know you. I guess I always have. Every moment, I find myself soaking all of you in like a sponge, absorbing all that it is that makes you you. Your innocence and your thirst for life draws me in and I feel energized just being near you. To see things through your eyes, it's as if I am seeing them for the first time. Familiar experiences now become reinvented as I share them with you. I swear when we touch, your warmth surges through my body and inspires me to be the best form of myself. I want to be better for you. To learn to live in the moment. To stop wishing I was at the next milestone. To stop running the race I'm never going to win. To realize that things look different when you take time to really see them. Your eyes see things that I pass by every day and never question, never care about, never appreciate. Now, because of you, I am taking that second look. In the calmness, your contentment tugs at me to jump off the hamster wheel and know that it's okay to just be. So that's what we do, you and I. We sit and we just be. Recently, I've noticed a lightness to my heart, an internal skip-in-my-step so to speak. Your presence has introduced me to the sweetness only know as pure joy. When you smile, I smile. I am truly happy. All because of you.

Love,

your mama