More Motherhood Dreams

I'm going to do it. I'm going to dare to picture more things that I'd love to do someday with my someday-child.

The list below comes from a journal that I kept for the baby during my short pregnancy last year (which is why it's all addressed to "you"). That journal has been sitting unopened since last March, until this week.

Things I want to do with you:

• Welcome you and your family back home to Thanksgiving dinner when you're all grown. Yes, this is the first thing that comes to mind—you as an adult. I wonder who you will become.
• Enjoy you as a baby, too. Feel your fingers close around mine, and watch your legs kick when you laugh. Rock and feed you in the stillness of the night.
• Share the people I love with you, and you with them. Watch your grandpa sit you on his lap and tell you stories. Make Christmas cookies with your grandma. Take you to play with my best friend's daughter. She's already in school now (see, it took me a while to have you!), but I know she will be patient and kind.
• Savor the ordinary things that I wondered if we'd ever do together, like going to the petting farm nearby. For years, I've driven by it several times a week, watched happy families going in and out, and never stopped.
• See your face light up when you touch the softness of an animal's fur, and teach you to care for small things that are dependent on you.
• See your confidence grow as you learn to walk, tie your shoes, and ride a bike. Bite my tongue and smile when you tell me, "Mom, I can do it myself!"
• Give you my favorite books. Happily read you that one special book 500 times.
• Take you to my favorite places, from the city park two blocks away to the national parks I've loved. We'll go on walks, and you can sit on my shoulders when you get tired.
• Do seasonal things: sniff the spring flowers, turn cartwheels in the summer grass, chase fireflies, go swinging at the playground and swimming in the pool, jump in piles of autumn leaves, carve pumpkins at the park, go ice skating and sledding, and catch snowflakes on our tongues.
• Do creative things: color on the sidewalk with chalk, put your art up on the fridge, build forts inside the house on a rainy day, and sing silly songs in the car. I'll clap at school plays and when you master playing "Three Blind Mice" on the recorder.
• Talk casually about the most important things while we do household chores or ride in the car side by side.
• Listen while you chatter about a new interest that excites you—something I'd know absolutely nothing about, if it weren't for you.

(source)