four months

Dear Eleanor Jane,

You turned four months old on Easter Sunday.  You are now closer to five months old than four, but oh well, that's just life right now.  You're turning into such a little person.  Your eyes are the most beautiful cornflower blue, and they light up and sparkle when you smile.  You delight everyone around you, and you're just generally darling all-around.

As much as you have enchanted your daddy and me, I still have a hard time believing that I'm your mother.  Not that it's you, I would have a hard time believing I was anyone's mother.  I don't know why, but I just can't shake this feeling that I'm faking it.  That one day, someone is going to show up at our door and announce the fun's over, it's time for Ellie to go to a real mama.  It's just that moms are so...together.  So smart and responsible.  And I?  I am about 16.  I like to sleep in until 10.  I never turn my socks right-side-out.  I don't finish things. Frequently.  I still dream of being famous.  I want to eat cookies for breakfast. Every day.  I can't, for the life of me, keep the kitchen full of food.  No joke, I can leave the grocery store with a carload of groceries and return home to find there is nothing for dinner.  How is this even possible?

It's only been in the last month that I've come to terms, a bit, with all of this. Maybe that's why this month has flown by.  Because I'm working to embrace my imperfection.  Maybe even find joy in the freedom of it.  Because I've learned that an afternoon of snuggles and smiles is worth far more than a clean house. Long story short, I have no clue as to what I'm doing.  And, Ellie, I love you for not caring.  You don't care if the laundry is done, or the house is clean, or if we're eating pasta, again.  Thank you, my little one, for helping me see that I'm not perfect, but I am, indeed, blessed.