Minnicks On Their Road To Ever After: Dear Lola,

Well mommy is writing this from the floor of my closet in a puddle of salty tears and tissues because well…. I now have a little girl who is closer to being 2 years old than she is to being one year old.

Did I mention I was never actually okay with you turning one in the first place?

The truth is, as much as I absolutely hate it…. I don’t hate it at all. I love it, I love every ounce of it EVERY SINGLE DAY.

All these year and all this time; I have you, your here and you are even more than I ever dreamed you would be (and i dream big).

What “I hate” that I refer to at every milestone is that every day I enjoy with you is a day I can’t look forward to enjoying with you anymore.

I feel like there is an imaginary calendar in my head and each day we spend together and every night I put you to bed is a day that I have to check off.

Each check makes my total number of days with you less.

There is really no way to explain it other than that.

I think this “way of loving” has it’s ups and downs…. for now it’s been more up than down so we’re going with it.

People come up with a lot of expressions and you will hear a lot of them in your life baby girl. Some won’t make much since, some are only for old people to get, some will come and go and some will kind of stick with you and repeat themselves in the back of your mind.

The two that stick in my mind the most since you have been born have been:

“Don’t blink, they grow up so fast”

and

“Live like you were dying”

Now I don’t feel like I have picked either of these but more that they have picked me.

They are a blessing and at times a curse.

A blessing because when you are awake we are ALL YOU. I feel guilty even looking at my phone (unless I’m taking your picture)or having a TV show on that i may enjoy while your awake.

Every moment we’re outside I’m showing you new things, birds, butterflies, airplanes, flowers, cars, sounds, neighbors etc.

And the grocery, well it may as well be an amusement park. I mean whoever went there just to shop…. it’s all bout you too. I actually told the bagger at Publix today that i didn’t need help getting to my car because I knew we had planned on taking you to see the Fire truck that was in the parking lot before going to the car.

Yes, really.

A curse because there is a not a second in the day where my brain goes into autopilot and I just shut it off. This “lack of autopilot” is also what I contribute(and i think most moms agree) to losing the rest of my memory since you came along.

I will say I am making steps towards “normalcy”… Just this month I have started for the first time ever letting you watch cartoons in the morning while you eat breakfast.

This was SUCH a big deal- I have never not sat at the kitchen table with you and talked with you and stared at you while taking your picture the entire time you ate breakfast (that was probably pretty annoying huh). Who knew I could actually use this time to do the dishes!

Baby steps people, baby steps.

So you can imagine, if at 18 months being in the same room with you and not directly interacting with you is a big deal- I think it may be fair to say “I haven’t blinked”- so why are you still growing up?

I mean hello? I did my part.

In a way this is where the second phrase comes in “Live like you were dying”…. you see Lola- people may have their opinions about your mom and dad and I’m sure they do but when you live like your dying ask yourself this….

Would you miss a lunch with a dying person?

How about a pool date?

A tea party?

Would you go out of town and leave them and possible miss a smile, a new noise, a colander that fits perfectly onto their head or an opportunity to see them fall in love with something new for the first time even if that’s a new book or a drain in the sidewalk that looks fun to step on?

Hell no you wouldn’t.

So yes, before I had our girl I thought I would leave and do lots without her. Alex and I had actually agreed to have date nights once a month (in a fairy tale land where baby sitters are frequent and free). In the big picture of raising her, I thought “what is a night ever so often or even a weekend get away”?

Well when your counting down days with someone it’s EVERYTHING and your every day moments with them ARE the “big picture” .

I may have it all wrong. It’s not that I want to think this way about our relationship Lola. Quite frankly it’s pretty morbid and it scares the living hell out of me to think we have a number of days together.

I have no idea what that number is but considering it took me 4 months after you were born to buy a bulk pack of wipes and a bigger than travel size bottle of Johnson an Johnson baby wash I think I’m doing pretty good just letting you ride in the back seat by yourself.

I guess i just thought once i got “use to you” i could look at the big picture and “loosen the reins” a bit. Well we’re still pinching ourselves and there is no “use to you” in sight!

Sure we have gone a handful of places without you… Weddings, birthday parties, hospital stays in Switzerland (that’s one way to break in our first night without you- ugh) etc but if we can leave you by choice and not sacrifice time without you by going after your asleep it’s a no brainer.

We have been going places together for 16 years without you so it is still so fun to experience every place with you! Every day and weekend we still think -but we haven’t been to “such and such place” with you at this very stage and “this very stage” changes daily.

I realize this may not be completely sustainable but like I said, we are clinging on to every bit of you that we have while you are still our one and only baby girl.

So, your daddy and I have been talking a lot about “our way of loving” since Tucker died and we have come to terms with one thing:

We love hard, really, really hard.

So what i have discovered with you baby girl is that the one thing that scares me more than knowing our number of days we have together is the amount of love we have for you.

I don’t think i have ever been more afraid of something in my entire life.

Your daddy always makes fun of me because there is not one single day of your life that has not been documented by, at minimum, 30 pictures.

Mark my words and check the hard drive. There is no exaggeration in my voice.

I remember thinking it was normal the first few weeks, even months… you were new… and this is what new parents do.

Well someone please let me know when the newness rubs off because girlfriend my phone stays filled up, I have gone through two computers and Daddy Lou has bought three back up hard drives.