Dear Aaliyanna: Sweet Devilish Ways

Dear Aaliyanna,

You crack me up with your sweet devilish ways. It’s 5:30 in the morning and I just put you back down to sleep in your crib. You woke your little booty up in the wee hours of the morning. I made you a bottle, which you happily ate while gracing me with your sweet smiles, two hours before you were “suppose” to wake.

I have had the experience of raising and loving two babies before you, your older brothers, and both of them gladly accepted your daddy and my notion that babies should be on a schedule. I even knew the time of day it was based on if and when your brothers would get a bit fussy as bottles and nap times were on two-hour intervals. This little scheme worked wonderfully for us and is the very reason your father agreed to having all of you children so close together.

However, you, my sweet little dove, do not like these so-called schedules. You drum to your own beat. You scoff at our ideals of what goes when and where. Although, it can be a bit frustrating at times; secretly, you make us laugh.

It seems a logical assumption to believe that since our boys are loud and destructive, we would be promised a quieter child with the birth of a baby girl; but yet, you seem to be the loudest child we have. I’m positively sure our neighbors regret the day we brought you home because their once-quiet homes are sometimes filled with your screams cries.

It’s not as if you do it simply for attention, either. There seems to be a deep pain in your voice and in the etchings in your face as if the pain of a hundred years has weathered your soul when you feel a wrong. Your grandma, whom you will know as “mama,” has remarked that when you cry it’s impossible to hear your sad voice and not feel the urging need to immediately scoop you into one’s arms and soothe those sad, sad tears away. This same grandma is the very one who instructed me not to pick up a crying baby the very second a single tear falls but yet, with you, the rules have suddenly changed.

I think it’s hilarious how little and sweet you look but you carry such a loud, boisterous voice. Even when I was pregnant with you, twice our doctor measured you smaller than expected and each time with concern, we were scheduled an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay. Both times you were of healthy size but yet, you deceivingly seemed so little. It seems to have become your signature: a deceptive assumption of “tiny” by first glance but given the time, one will see you are a baby of convictions and the courage to demand them.

I would never classify you as an “easy” baby but I’m certain that you will make one hell of a woman. But until then, it is early morning feedings and the many struggles and many a fights I’m sure we will have as mother and daughter over the years. To the madness that will consume us, I cannot help but smile. These struggles that we will encounter together and against one another are natural progressions in life. You will strive for independence as you age and I will continue my motherly instinct to protect every single hair on your smart, beautiful, wonderful head. I so look forward to knowing you as a sweet baby, a silly toddler, a precocious girl, an evolving teenager and a wonderful woman. You are only six months old but you already make me so damn proud to be your mother. I love you, sweet baby girl.

All My Love,

Mommy