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my youngest

my dearest elisea,
you are our youngest. you are our forever baby and our little wonder.

you are surrounded by love and adoration in our home.
rocky has unending patience with you, your big sisters cannot get enough of your hilarious mannerisms, and daddy is clearly smitten.

and me?
i am consistently impressed and drawn to so many components of your complex personality. i find myself loving you in a special and profound way, on a daily basis.

you see, little one, although you are our third child and our third girl, the experience of having you has brought something new to our lives.
you are the youngest. you are not a twin. and so, you are different in many ways.


you have an intuition about you, unlike i have seen in any other child your age. you are constantly the entertainer with your strong expressions and growing wit and humor. (you are currently on a mission to figure out what makes knock knock jokes so funny). you possess this strong maternal inclination and you love to help others, hug others, comfort others. your vocabulary is growing with purpose and you insert yourself into conversations and interactions that are well beyond your years. your intelligence is different -- in some way too. you form opinions and make connections so easily and with such fluidity that i am often asking you to repeat yourself so that i can be sure of what i just witnessed.

your infectious smile and those bright eyes are traits that your older sisters also possess, but all three of you carry your own unique element in each. your beauty is commented on constantly, and your adorable actions are always demanding attention.

yet it is your special social nature that draws us in. you seem to know when someone needs to be hugged or smiled at or talked with, and that is a gift, really. you grab our faces and cover them in smooches. you love to snuggle whenever you see one of us on a couch. if one of your sisters is upset or angry, you immediately drop everything to run to her side. you are grateful for even the smallest act of kindness and gesture of love.

your tenacity and stubborn will, your vocal brevity and loud refusals, your loyalty and fierce individuality -- these components of your personality are so challenging and so rewarding.

you are our youngest.
and the past two years have been a whirlwind of trying new things and exploring, travel and vacations, milestone after milestone after milestone. in my head, i notice a million things about our experience with you and your quirks and habits... but i cannot seem to find the time to reflect or narrate like i would hope. and i know it is because you are our youngest. there are already two children growing along with you, and their experiences are important too.

but your experience deserves just as much as theirs did at your age, and so i take a million pictures with hopes that i will print them out and catalog them and somehow arrange them in frames and scrapbooks. because the family dynamic has changed drastically since your birth, we have learned to give in and to hang on in different ways. i force myself to slow down with the moments that i get with you. i have tried to postpone mundane daily activities to snuggle and giggle with you while you still love that. each of us make a special effort to connect with you in a unique way, so that you have a special bond with each of us.

my dearest elisea, you have enriched our lives in countless ways and have opened our eyes to a life that we could have never otherwise experienced. you have given your sisters a chance to be proud siblings to a baby they are so in love with. you have given mommy and daddy a chance to dote on one newborn and to notice so much about one little girl in each stage you go through.

thank you to my youngest, to you, for opening our hearts again, and to a size i could not imagine even existed.

you are a special little girl, forever mama's baby and daddy's princess, a loving little wise and spunky firecracker who is sure to light up the skies with bright and creative hues.






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