Dear Baby Girl

I wrote this email to my little sweetheart the other night, and wanted to share it with ya’ll.  (If you don’t have an email account set up to send little notes to your kiddos, you totally should!!  I email our kids frequently, and they’ll get the address and password when they are old enough to appreciate it.)

Hey Baby Girl.  It’s been a while since I’ve written you a letter because, well, I’m so busy – with you!  Tonight, though, as I sat at the bar and cut out laminating that we did today, I just had to stop and write to you.  I never planned to homeschool you.  I never planned to have a three year old who would actually enjoy looking at classic art work and discussing it with me.  So as I sat there and trimmed around all these pieces of classic artwork, and day dreamed about all the conversations we’ll have, and the stories you’ll make up to go with each piece, and imagined all the cute things I know you’ll say while reflecting on them, I just had to stop cutting and tell you how amazing you are.  I know that you struggle with some things.  You get frustrated that you just can’t get the whole potty thing.  You get frustrated that you can’t smell.  You get frustrated because your letters don’t look like mine when you write.  But baby girl, you are three.  And you are amazing.  God has given you a brain that never quits.  Your thirst for knowledge is electrifying and exciting and makes me want to learn more, too.  You make me want to be a better person.  Yes, sometimes you frustrate me out of my mind and drive me to my knees, but even in those moments I am loving you, and in those moments you are sending me straight back to the One who created us both – and that makes me a better person.  I love you.  I love how you get big sad eyes and say that you don’t want us to leave you at bedtime.  And I loved how tonight you admitted that it wasn’t that you were scared of your bed or didn’t want to sleep, but that yes, you really just wanted more time with us.  Your love language is starting to shift.  From being a child who solely relied on words of affirmation to get you through, now suddenly in just this last week you can’t get enough time with us.  I’m sure part of it is because you are nervous about going to “school” in a couple weeks.  You’ll never admit it, but I’m betting that two days a week away from home for Mother’s Day Out has you more than a little nervous.  Baby girl, I’m terrified.  I’m terrified that you’ll be yourself and that someone will break your heart because they’ll put you down for knowing all you know.  I’m terrified that you’ll decide you need to be someone that you’re not in order to fit in with the status quo.  I’m terrified that maybe you’ll be so enamored by your teacher there that you won’t want me to be your teacher any more.  I’m terrified that this might be the only time I get to have someone else teach you until you’re in college.  So I’m sure you’re more than a little nervous yourself.  But Baby Girl, you’re the most amazing little girl ever.  You have your challenges, and you have your talents.  But the thing that makes you amazing is your spirit.  It’s WHO YOU ARE.  You are a child of the One True King. You are Rebecca Joy Hinnant.  You are my baby.  You are beautiful, and you have a heart of gold that cares so much for other people.  You are my love.  And while so many things about you have been nothing like I imagined, I am SO THANKFUL that you are EXACTLY who you are.  Because God made you so perfectly.  The things that the world might see as flaws, I see as a beautiful expression of God’s love.  The things the world might see as abnormal or profound, I see as God’s way of making you exactly who He meant for you to be.  You are amazing.  And I can’t wait to see what this school year holds for us together.  I look forward to analyzing classical artwork with you, and studying about our state, and learning more about numbers and doing experiments, and playing, playing, playing.  You are amazing.  And I love you forever.