last night of one

(Pearl showing me that she is still one, but practicing her two for tomorrow :). These photos are all from tonight before I put her to bed.)

I put my one-year-old baby to bed tonight for the last time. Tomorrow she will wake up a two-year-old, and I am feeling extra tender for her as I think about just how full she has made these past two years.


She is a dream to me-- all of the good things that my heart had ever imagined having a daughter would be like are wrapped up in her tiny body and enormous personality.


As I nursed her before bed tonight I was teary just thinking about how much she means to me-- my very own baby girl. I love her most because she is mine. I love her for a thousand reasons (probably more), but the very most important one is just simply that she belongs to me.


I get to care for her. I am the one who gets to rock her to sleep at night and wake up to her tiny voice.


I am the one who gets to buckle her into her car seat and carry her on my hip into the grocery store.


I am the one who gets to watch her tease her brother and then teach her to say "I'm sorry."


I am the one who gets to change her diapers and carefully pick out her outfits and get her dressed each day.


I am the one who gets to respond when she calls out, "Mama" three hundred times a day.


I am the one she wants. I am the one she needs. I am her mother.


It has been a privilege and blessing that I will never be able to be grateful enough for. I am so very happy that I have so many years left in front of me to be her mama.