Sweet Stella,
At one year old you are the embodiment of all that is sweet and heart-melting and pity-evoking and delicious. You have this uncanny way with dimples and rolls that leaves all onlookers melting into a pile of goo. I mean, just yesterday I went to get you out of bed, all in a hurry, and your big bright eyes landed on me and you started bouncing and shrieking with such contagious laughter that I found myself grinning stupidly and forgetting all about the meeting we were late for!
Sometimes your dad and me, upon hearing your first squawks of the morning, will lock eyes and then race down the stairs, elbowing each other all the way to your crib to get the first slobbery kiss of the day. Delicious, I'm telling you.
And there's "the lip". It sticks way out like a pouty little saucer right before your flood gates open and you just fall to pieces. That lip and those big eyes look up at me with such vulnerability and confusion that I impulsively scoop you right up into my arms and kiss that fat roll on your neck and say, "shhhh mama's got you" until you feel safe again.
When we rock and read books at night and you sit so still on my lap and rest your blonde, curly head right on my chest and your squishy little hand on my arm, my heart just explodes right then and there. It aches with so much love and peace and nurturing that it gushes up my throat and out of my eyes and there I am weeping reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?
You are the most perfect little individual I could have ever dreamed up and I am absolutely enthralled to be your mama.
