My Little Livi Rabbit

My Dear Livi Rabbit:

You are quite simply the most amazing person I've ever met. I'm shocked that your daddy and I tried so hard for you for so long, praying to a God I'd forgotten, becoming superstitious, becoming amature geneticists and science nerds, shedding many tears and at the end of it all, with a ten percent chance of success you came to us.

Perfect little you.

Perfect little you with the perfect legs that wiggle, the eyes that see everything, study everyone, the tiny little heart that beats deep in your chest and flutters wildly when you get mad, the fingers so long and so curious and those toes...

Well, your dad is sorry about your toes.

Your personality is so big and frightening. Soon you will want to know things. Many things. Your father and I have been tasked with choosing the answers that will guide and mold you, make you understand, make you question and give you wings. This parenting thing is hard, my love, and in a world where I rule supreme, my decisions arrows that cut to the heart of matters, my words sure and steady, not to be questioned, I am rendered clueless.

I am rendered stupid, shivering and unsure.

There are no right answers when you are a parent. No decision is easy. No question mark is immediately answered without sudden panic that my words, my thoughts or my actions could screw you up for life. It is like Sliding Doors or The Butterfly Effect or some weird movie where so many little things could've happened to change the outcome. Granted, I don't really think that allowing you to eat food with preservatives will make you slovenly or that watching Pocoyo in the morning will turn you into a crackhead, but still...

Daunting, I tell you.

I just hope that I make more right decisions than wrong, love you more than I should, shelter you less than one would consider smothering and free you just enough to be confident, but not enough to drown. I hope I make you laugh when appropriate, cry less than others and worry that I'm disappointed as opposed to ambivalent when I hurt.

You, my dear, can make me feel all the emotions available to a mental patient in one swift moment; glorious, lovely and terrifyingly worried for every little heartbreak, appendage and brain cell. If I could put you in a bubble I would, but I can't find one that wouldn't cause some kind of emotional damage.

I promise you that you also make me stronger.

In an I can rip someone's heart out of their bare chest with my hands and teeth if they hurt you.

That last fact was learned over an unfortunate case of diaper rash because of a caregiver's ambivalence about your sensitive skin. Imagine what I could do if someone made you cry.

You are the best gift I've ever received and being your mother is simply the most important role I've ever taken on. I knew I'd met you before when I first held you. We've always been together, my darling. Science just finally caught up.

I hope I don't let you down, love.

Love and mush,

Mom