Dear Nora,
First off, happy birthday. You are six. You are six.
I remember each moment of your arrival- and don’t tell me I don’t, morphine ain’t that great of a drug- because I wanted to meet you so badly. I panicked (and ate salt) throughout eleventy-nine months of a sitcom of a pregnancy (one of the more serious and “real” episodes, obvie). What if I had no idea how to be a Mom? Would I ever be able to keep liquids down again? What do you mean, we just drive away from the hospital with the baby like it’s a legit thing? And then suddenly there you were.
You were pink. You were impossibly tiny. You were a girl. I floppily cradled you in my post-operative arms and knew that I knew what I knew. Among those thoughts were these: I was your mother. You made me a Mom. And I was already terrific at it. (So maybe morphine isn’t so terrible; it’s a highly effective painkiller/confidence booster.)
But here’s my trick to making motherhood easy: It’s you, kid. You are remarkably easy to parent. From the day we met you, you looked out at life with a seriously furrowed and cautious brow. You experience fully- once you know the rules. You love without reserve- once someone is deemed worthy. And while we joke that you’re our Sister Mary Pious and there’s a very real chance that you’ll report us to the police for a minor infraction someday, we wouldn’t change a thing. You’re our Alex P. Keaton and we marvel at your very nature (while wondering, exactly, how you came to be).
Life is such a thing of chance, Nora Janie-pie. If I had conceived you even one week, one day, one hour differently, you might have blue eyes. Red hair. Long, long legs (but probably not). Time and God and fate and space all worked together to give us you at the exact moment we were supposed to become a family that included a pint-sized lady with stories as big as the sky.
We didn’t know we were supposed to become your parents. But good Lord, kiddo, we are so eternally grateful. You’re a treasure. You’re our treasure. And slowly, quietly, you’re becoming a treasure to the world around you, too.
You’re not a baby anymore. But you’re my baby, and you’re just as much a pal to me as the day you were born- and as you’ll be when we’re old, short, creaky ladies together.
I love being your Mom, Nora. I love how you make me a better me, how you jive with our family as a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a cousin, a niece, and a friend- and I love you for reasons that are (and will continue to be) independent of us entirely.
I love you, kid.
Happy sixth birthday.
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