Happy birthday Little Girl!

It's been twenty-one months that I've loved you: nine months that you grew inside me and the year that has followed.

Six years ago, barely pregnant with your older sister, I dreamed vividly of two little girls, one a preschooler and the other a newborn just home from the hospital. Many times over the next few years I thought of that dream, even during the three years following your sister's birth when I was learning to adjust to the idea that she might be an only child.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I had a feeling you would be here someday--although maybe not necessarily a girl. In fact, I called you Jack the entire first half of my pregnancy, so convinced I was that you were a boy after all. I remember when the ultrasound technician told me I was having another girl my first words were "are you sure?"

You were born during one of the hottest summers of my life, though I'm sure it only seemed that way due to my suddenly heavy and awkward size. When you were born, rain finally fell and ended our drought. It seemed to parallel the tears of joy I cried at meeting you for the first time.

I thought that I loved your sister and wouldn't be able to love you as much. I have discovered that I love both of you equally, and with an intensity that I never knew I could. You are the children I dreamed of many years ago.

I love the moments when you smile a three-tooth grin, or tell me "ssssss" with your finger in front of your mouth when you think I'm too noisy, or cling to me like a baby koala, or even when you throw a food you find distasteful on the floor and innocently say "uh-oh." I wish I could remember these times with your sister, but I was in a postpartum fog for so long that I didn't calm down and appreciate much beyond my stress and anxiety. You have the benefit of my experience and I won't make the same mistakes that I made with your sister.

Admittedly, you have fewer pictures in the scrapbook, and the ones that are in there also feature your sister or one of her various limbs, usually in your face. She loves you so much that she can't stand to be away from you. We all feel the same way. We love you, our big Little Girl, and wish you a very happy birthday.