I hope you'll take these words and go forward.

 I’ve been spending some time going through what is now nearly a decade of blog posts. That seems utterly unbelievable and yet for the bulk of my time as a parent, I’ve been writing it down. In those early years, I wrote about different things and I wrote differently because I was different then. It has been absolutely lovely to travel back in time through my own words, and revisit who I was, and who we were as a family, over the years. When I started all of this, I’m not sure what I expected. At first, I thought what I wanted from this blog was a chance to pour my own heart out, but what I found was community. Other people came, and left comments, and shared their own experiences as mothers and parents and oh, how that filled me up, especially when I felt unsure, or alone. I was writing in those early days for me, but I realize now what a gift this space will be for them some day. It will be my gift to my children. As someone who has parented almost exclusively without my mother and often without my parents, the central question that has haunted me throughout the years that I could never ask her was, did it feel like this for you? Now, when my own children transverse these sacred parenting waters, whether I’m with them in body or spirit, whether I remember or not, I know they will have at least some of the answers to these questions. I’m deeply comforted by this.

I came across an old post that I’d written six years ago on the occasion of Dylan’s eighth birthday, where I stopped to write down some reflections about who he was then. It is an absolute gift, a perfect time capsule for me and for him someday. Unbelievably, Hope will be turning eight in just a few short months. Many of those early posts are about our moments together as mother and baby. But now, on the remarkably inauspicious occasion of being just three months shy of her eighth birthday, I need to jot down these reflections of who she is right now because it is the most wonderful moment. My father teaches me every day that moments slip away from you. None of us get to hold them any longer than another. So I’m writing it down. As I sit snuggled inside on this chilly fall day, it is my hail mary attempt at something that even closely resembles permanence.

The thing I say the most about you, Hope, is that I named you well. You are in fact the perfect embodiment of Hope. You are almost always filled with so much energy and enthusiasm for almost everything. To just be in your orbit and watch you spin, quite literally fills me with Hope. You love Gravity Falls and have watched every single episode multiple times, belly laughing through each episode in a way that is both endearing and contagious. You love Mabel and I feel like if a television character existed in real life you would be friends and have matching rainbow sweaters and security guards made out of waffles. At recess, you love to play gaga and play with a competitiveness that is foreign to me. You are unafraid to play to win. In this way you are like Dad. I am glad of this. You love your kitty friends at school too, meowing your way through life (much to Ruby’s chagrin!). Your favorite pokemon is Skitty, and you love to meow like her and get your belly scratched like her. You call your bed cozy town, and you snuggle there with elly the elephant and her twin, love bunny, heart, avocado, donut, unicorn, ladybug, barkley and all your other cozy side characters. 

You write original songs like a true artist and sing them with the heart of a pop star and angel. You sing till your heart will seemingly burst open with all of the emotions that these songs summon in you, tears streaming down your face. You are always so full of all of these different emotions all of the time. Sometimes the love just literally pours out of you. You are interested in space and science and potions, and tell me that fall is the best time of the year. I quite agree. You love to craft and draw and create. Every single inch of the walls in our house is covered in an original piece of artwork that has been scotch taped to the wall. These visceral markings of your childhood are one of my most favorite things. When you grow up, you can’t decide if you will be a chef or a swim instructor or a pop star or the owner of the XO. You are considering pursuing all the things. Your visions for owning and running the XO cafe as an all day tic tac toe themed breakfast establishment are remarkably descriptive at just 8 years old. Both Dad and I could truly see you working to make this a reality. You love video games and minecraft and Mario Kart. Toad is your spirit animal. You leave it all on the Rainbow Road. 

You are so full of questions and simultaneously, random facts, that I can’t imagine how it is possible that so much information can ever swirl inside one body and how that one body can ever rest with so much going on inside of it. But amazingly you do, and at night I love to watch you sleep. You are truly a wonder and a gift. I feel so lucky that you chose me as your mother. 

I have this unhealthy desire to hold you back because you are my last little one. Letting you grow up, as you should, means moving on from so many of the toys and cartoons and activities that marked our lives for the past ten years. But time just keeps advancing and running, it is the water through our fingers. We can never hold on to it no matter how hard we bear down. It’s best not to try. As I look at  your brother, taller than me now, he is so much still that little boy from all those years ago but also becoming his own person as he should. I’m grateful to have written down who he was and to know him now. And so when you read this many years from now Hope, you too will stand at this strange intersection of who you were and who you are becoming, as we all always are. Here are at these crossroads, I hope you’ll take these words, and go forward.