Easter Sunday 2018 egg “tie dye” painting!

Dear Maisy,

I remember when your sister was first born and I loved her with this tender, sweet love.  For the longest time I struggled with feeling like I loved you more just because I loved you passionately and with a certain ferocity.  I thought I was subconsciously playing favorites and that you were winning.

And now I find myself I struggling with feeling like the tables have turned.  I love Penny with the same tender sweet love and it’s this deep warm glow that hugs my heart all day long and lights up my face so many times a day.  I love you with the same passionate, ferocious love but most days it feels like a scary fire rather than a cozy one to get warm by.  I’ve come to realize that our personalities are different in some key ways that leave us at odds with each other and yet simultaneously ferociously in need of each other.

Why does it feel like the tables have turned?  I’ve realized it has more with your personality at this age.  You are quick to whine and scream.  You are often slow to obey.  You seem to be at constant odds with my wants and desires, like you have to push back even if it’s something so minor.  There’s arguing at every turn.

Even with all this though, my reflections on the way I felt in the first paragraph versus the second, it becomes glaringly obvious that it is not at all that I love one of you more than the other, it’s simply that each love feels so different. Penny, brings about a peace in me.  Maisy, you make me a better person, you refine me.  The reality is that every mom has a different relationship with every child.  That may mean I find it easier to relate to Penny than to you, and that’s ok!  That may also mean I may sometimes find it easier to relate to you than to Penny, and that’s ok too!  All I want you to know is you are intensely loved by me and nothing can change that.  I want you to feel secure in my love and that we can always be open with each other.  I think that will be key for our relationship in order for us to understand each other.

I love you like crazy!

Love,

Mommy