Dear Elly

Today, you fell asleep in the middle of the living room in the middle of the afternoon. I thought, "Gee, she must need it," and tried to get some rest of my own while you slept. After a while, though, I started thinking you would have a hard time falling asleep tonight and I went over and picked you up to wake you up. Your eyes didn't even open, and you were limp in my arms. I lay down on the couch to cuddle you.

Your head rested on my chest, your ear over my heart. It reminded me of how, when you were a baby, you slept better close to me, listening to my heart. How it was as close as we could get, with you outside my body, as we had been when you were in my womb. We spent many naptimes just like that. I found myself wishing you could shrink down to that 8 lb 9 oz butterball, just for a few seconds, so I could relive that closeness between newborn you and me, and then grow right back into the marvelous four year old you have become.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I felt the loss of baby you, and that relationship that can never be recaptured of utter connectedness, dependence, and trust. But even more, they were tears of joy, as I reveled in the amazing girl I saw before me, so proud of you for breaking out of that relationship into the one we have now, the one where each day you gain more independence from me, and we both learn more about the person you are. You daily chart new territory into the outside world and into your inner being.

And I cried more, knowing how precious these moments are, knowing in a year I will wonder where my four-year-old Elly went and what was she really like? The few wonderful memories I hold on to surely don't capture the parts of you that change so fast. But I tried to lock a picture of you in my mind anyway, studying your face: The length and shape of your eyelashes, your hairline, the rhythmic quiver of your lips and chin as you sporadically sucked your tongue (thinking, "She did inherit something from me"), your peach fuzz, your collarbone and the new freckle right below it.

Of course you are always you. I look back at videos of your infancy and I see you, as you are now, inside the effortful movements and babytalk. It reassures me that when you are an adult you will not be a stranger. You will just be you. And I will love you as much as I do now, as much as I have since the day you were born.

Thank you for the nap-cuddle today, my dear sweet four year old Eliana.

Love,
Mom