One

Dear Zoë,

I just wanted you to know that, even though I might have had more time to take pictures of your older brother, and even though I haven't spent as much time playing on a blanket with you, thus resulting in your failure to roll over by now, I do love you every bit as much as him.

In fact, this blog is just for you. He doesn't even get one. There. Throw that in his face when you guys are pre-teens, arguing over which one is loved more, each trying to convince the other that you're not the adopted one. Of course he has the bigger room, so he's got that over you, but maybe by then you'll have argued about it so much that your dad and I will have decided you can both just live in the family room. Or the garage. Or the backyard. Side note: choosing a home to raise your family in when you're 27 leads to bad decisions like not paying attention to the fact that you've chosen a floor plan with one regularly sized room and one gigantor room. But I digress.

These letters are just for you, piglet. And I hope that someday, when you most need to hear them, you'll read them and think of your mom, typing away on the "notes" app of her stupid, obsolete iPhone that was all the rage in 2012 in the middle of the night with you curled up in her lap, snorting and mouth breathing in the fashion that's earned you your nickname. Perfect and soft and warm against me.

I love every little tiny thing about you. Even though you smile just when my camera loses focus of you. Even though you always spit up into your chins after your bath, you poop in your clean diapers, and you cry as soon as I sit down to eat dinner. Even though you drool only onto my favorite clothes and you insist on being held at all the times of all the days. And even though I'm rolling my eyes and saying something about Darwin's theory really being about babies' cuteness saving them from getting chucked at things, I love every minute when I'm with you. I'd rather be pulling my eyelashes out in frustration over getting you to nap than sitting on any beach in Tahiti because someday, when you're grown up, I will still be wishing to be here. Late at night when no one else is awake in the world but us, sitting on the bed in the dark and holding your tiny face in my elbow, listening to your quiet sighs. Wishing I could stare at you long enough that you won't get any bigger any faster, not wanting you to grow out of my arms.

Love you for always, Mom