A Quick Letter to My Baby Girl

Dear Audrey,

Your life is about to change. Drastically. You are going to be a big sister! You are going to share your life, your home, our family, the good, the bad, the ugly with your new baby brother. You are going to have someone to play with, to fight with, to grow up with. Someone to teach and learn from. Someone to protect and to protect you. Someone to tease relentlessly and then defend to the death.

You are a wonderful little girl and daughter and you are going to be a super big sister. I just know it.

If you and your little brother have a relationship that is anything like the relationship that I had with my little brother growing up, things might be rough from time to time. He will embarrass you in front of your friends. He will tell stories about you that are both unfortunately true and fortunately not true. He will show you up by understanding fractions and decimal points long before you do. He will disrespect your dolls and ruin your big days. He will take your parents' attention when you need it most. He will frustrate you and make you cry. Many of these things will probably continue even into adulthood.

But, if you and your little brother have a relationship that is anything like the relationship that I have with my (not so) little brother, you and he will also go through things together that only siblings can share. And you will be glad that you have one another. He will respect you and look up to him and you will think he's really pretty neat deep down. Though I hope you never have to say goodbye to me or your dad at a young age, like my brother and I had to say goodbye to our mom, I am so glad that you will have someone to go through that experience with whenever it does happen because you will need someone who understands how you feel and why you feel like that. Only siblings can do that sometimes.

I know I'm going to love your baby brother, but I'm not sure otherwise how I'm going to feel about him. I guess I'll have to meet him first. But, I do know exactly how I feel about you. I love you to no end. You light up my life and make me want to be a better person. I am more proud to have you as my child at any given moment than I have ever been of all my other accomplishments combined. And, you are only a toddler! I know that you will continue to amaze me for years to come. If you are ever in doubt about just how much I love you, even when things are hard or your baby brother is distracting me from you, remember that I got to love you and only you for two whole years before I even knew your brother existed. You have an advantage :) We have a special relationship and I hope that never goes away, even as it changes.

I love you, my Audrey.

Always,
Mommy