Dear Sunshine

Dear Sunny Rae,

I swear to god I just heard you count to 4 all by yourself!  You are sitting there picking pineapples off of your pizza and I asked you “can you count them?” and you said “un, do, phee, fo”.  Am I just crazy or did you really just do that?  You are some kind of smart little girl.

Dear Sunshine,

I would officially say that you are now a walker!  You took a few steps the other day and then walked half way across the living room.  You haven’t mastered it perfectly yet, but I think you are pretty darn close!  Let the bruises, head bashing, and chasing begin!

Dear Sunshine,

I would just like to say that you are a genius!  You know where your head, teeth, tongue, nose, eyes, mouth, ears, button, hands, and toes are!  That is 10 BODY PARTS!!!  I don’t know any other 13 month old that can point out that many body parts.  Pure genius; really!!!

Dear Sunny Rae,

Call us crazy but we bought you a potty seat last week and well lets just say it was a brilliant idea.  Right when we got home from the store we sat you on it and asked if you had to pee.  Sitting there anxiously daddy saw you put your hand in the potty and when you pulled it out it was wet!  1st try you peed right in the potty seat.  You have now been peeing and even pooping in the potty like an expert really.  You crawl over to the potty and we put you on it and most of the time you pee.  Obviously you still are in diapers and are still peeing and pooping in them but we just thought we would get the ball rolling on potty training as we saw signs that you were ready, and we were absolutely right.  Mommy and daddy could not be more proud of you little girl.  It seems like getting you potty trained will be easier than we expected.

Dear Sunshine,

On June 25th your aunt Karlee had surprise twin boys; Kyle Fly and Miles Trust.  They were 6 weeks early so they were very tiny and under a lot of stress.  They were both doing pretty good, but Kyle was barely hanging in there.  He passed away last night at 4:09am.  You woke up last night crying around the same time he passed and it made me wonder if maybe somehow you knew something was wrong.  Even though you only have 1 little boy cousin physically here, you will always have 2 little boy cousins.  I know that you won’t understand any of this until you are older but I thought I would still write it down so that you could one day look back and read about little Kyle and how he was a precious being too special for this world.  

This makes me appreciate every moment I have with you and makes me look back at how scary it was giving birth to you; having to be thrown into an emergency C-section, not being awake for your birth, hearing that you didn’t have a real first cry, seeing how extremely tiny you were.  I am so glad that you made your way through to the world little girl.  I just can’t imagine…

Dear Sunny Rae,

Happy 11 month birthday little girl!!!  You are getting so so so big and growing up so so so fast.  1 year old next month?  How in the world?  You can say all kinds of things now like mama, mom, dada, baba, gaga, bub, yum, ah-don (all done), and a bunch of other half sounds that I think you are trying to say words with and can repeat a lot of the sounds that we say to you.  You can pull up onto things all by yourself no problem and are now exploring with letting go of them.  You laugh so much now and it’s very very cute.  You are awesome at sharing things and always want me to eat your food.  You are the most amazing little girl and I can’t believe you are growing up so fast!  I love you so much silly girl.

Dear Sunny Rae,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to have my first mothers day.  You are the most amazing little girl in the whole entire world and I can only hope that you think I am the most amazing mom that I could ever be to you.  You have taught me so much just in these 10months about being a mom and I know that you will keep teaching me everything I need to know.  You are so amazing and I could not be more proud to be your mom.  I love you so so so much. 

P.S.  I hope you like the picnic we are packing for you today!

Dear Sunny Rae,

Today we were blowing bubbles outside and you started saying “bub”.  I am so very proud. 

Dear Sunny Rae,

Happy 10 month old birthday little girl.  You are getting so big and I wish mommys camera would hook up to the computer so I could post photos for you.  You are starting to get more and more hair and your top tooth is poking right on through.  You are babbling so much and can say mama, dada, baba, and a ton of other sounds that I haven’t quite figured out what they mean yet.  You are almost standing on your own and you can walk really good if you are holding our hands.  Only 2 more months until your 1 year birthday little girl…wow that went by really fast don’t you think?  Slow down on the growing for me ok?  I love you so much Sunshine and I hope you have the most amazing 10 month birthday any kid could ever have.  I love you.

Dear Sunshine Rae,

You are the strongest kid I know, really.  I love you so much little girl.  Stay strong for mommy and daddy ok.

Dear Sunny Rae,

Happy 9 month old birthday little girl.  You are the most amazing little girl in the whole entire world, really.  I hope you are having the best 9 month birthday you could ever have.  I love you so so so much more than I could ever explain, please know that.  I love you.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are gray.
You’ll never know dear how much I love you.

Dear Sunny Rae,

Sometimes in life, bad things happen to good people.  Sometimes things happen that are not as we expected and not the way that they are at all planned to be.  Some things are really confusing and I know some things are very hard to understand.  You are the strongest little girl I know and you are doing so good with the situation that we have been thrown into.  Stay strong Sunny; I am trying my hardest to stay strong for you even though it is so hard and confusing right now.  You are doing so wonderful, you really are.  I know it’s hard and I know it’s different and I know it’s not what we want to happen but sometimes things just happen and that’s just the way it has to be.  Just please know that I love you more than anything in this whole entire world and that everything is going to be ok.  Everything will be ok little girl, I promise.

P.S.  You said bye-bye today.