Sweet baby, Autumn.

I haven't written you in a while. But not for lack of thought, or lack of love. I've been busy living life with you. You have grown so much! I'm afraid, if I turn for even a moment, your childhood will have passed us by. You are running and climbing. You are becoming who you are. There are things you love, and things you don't like at all. You feel sad, and happy, and excited, and frustrated, and proud in such a whirlwind I hardly have time to appreciate each one before it's on to the next.

You have a toy boat, and for some reason, you've decided that it BELONGS in the drawer of our side table. Only, it doesn't fit. Not exactly. It will lay down in the drawer (a feat you were so proud to accomplish) but when you go to open the drawer, the sail gets stuck. I watch you try and try, and sometimes you push me away when I try to help. And then you get so angry that you just sit down and cry. Then I will help you get it out, only to have you immediately open the drawer and lay it back in. For weeks, I turned the table around so the drawer would face the wall, but the day I turned it back around, you walked straight over to your boat, carried it to the table, and put it inside.

I know it's difficult for you. But I'm proud. I'm proud that you created a place for it on your very own. I'm proud that you remembered it after such a long time had passed. And I'm proud that you try so hard when it doesn't work the way it's supposed to. You get that from your Dad. You also get the short temper when they don't work from him too, but that's another letter.

I'm afraid I don't give you enough credit sometimes. You are very smart. And very kind. You share all of your food. Even the gummy crackers you've been working on for fifteen minutes. You share them with me and your Dad and all your stuffed animals.

Currently, due to your overwhelming kindness, we are sharing an unfortunate stomach flu. It amazes me how you can feel so bad and still be so loving. You woke up with it. When we came into your room and realized you had been sick all over your bed, you were standing there, beaming at us because we came to you. Maybe it's something that happens when you become an adult, but I will tell you in this letter, we were not beaming. And today, when we were both ill with it, we certainly weren't beaming.

You are such a big girl now, that I do not have to rock you to sleep. You have learned to sleep on your own. And I will be honest in way that you will understand when you have children, I am very grateful. But tonight, since you are not feeling well, and were having trouble falling asleep (even with baby lamb, and your music box) I rocked you. And sitting in the rocking chair, your sweet head on my arm, I was overcome with a feeling I didn't immediately recognize.

I was sad.

I was overcome as I hummed to you the songs I used to sing as you fell asleep. And I realized these songs have no place in our busy toddler world.They've been replaced with faster repetitive songs. Ones with hand motions and lots of clapping. These lullabies somehow slipped into the past, like the footy pajama's I've packed away, and the baby bottles I no longer prepare for you when you're hungry. But the difference is, I realized when I was putting away your baby things that we were moving on to a new era, together.

There is something that happens sometimes when you are falling asleep, next to someone who cares about you, feeling safe and overwhelmed with love. It's like all time happens at once, and you are a child, and a lover, and a mother, and you are free from your body in a few dreamy moments to live your whole life over. You watch the sun patterns on the blanket tent your grandmother has hung from the clothes line. You lick birthday cake off your fingers while your mother sings to you. You bury tonka trucks in the dirt with your brother. You ride a bike down the big hill for the first time. You feel brave. You feel the flutter in your stomach that feels a lot like panic, but is really wonder, the first time someone kisses you. You marry your best friend and realize, oh, this is what love is. You move from city to city. You feel new. And you get to do these things because in those moments you are protected, and hopeful, and happy. And you are free to let go of your present worries, and your busy days and just be who you are and always have been.

I felt that tonight with you. I hummed your lullabies and found myself in our hospital room, watching you sleep and hoping to God, you didn't stop breathing. I was in our apartment in California the first few chances I had to be alone with you, setting up your nursery. Trying to remember the words to Hush Little Baby. And singing Flying Dreams to you, realizing how perfect the lyrics were for your first lullaby. And feeling like, when I sang to you, I was somehow being a mother despite not having the faintest idea of how to.

And tonight, when I was singing those songs to you, I realized they had somehow been lost. Like moments from my childhood that can only be remembered in that dreaming place. And I was nostalgic in a way that ached for you to be small enough to rest against my chest again. For those sweet moments where we were learning together what it meant to belong to one another.

When you finally fell asleep, you were almost too heavy for me to carry to your crib and lift you over the edge. And when I placed you inside you woke for just a moment, and looked me in the eyes and held my arm before you turned over and hugged your baby lamb.

I haven't written you in a while, because I've been busy living life with you. But I promise, to never get to busy living life, to write you. These are moments I will remember. Snapshots I will carry with me when I am old, and you are older. I want to cherish them all.

I'm not too busy,
I am your mom.