Special One.

Lillie,

When I'm an old woman there will be something that I remember about you being a baby. It's the drunk walk you do with your teeth hanging out in the breeze. Your hair grows just long enough now that it dips up and down as you saunter down the hall.

It is your birthday today. We were out in the hall at church together, you ducked in and out of the gym with your pretty white dress on. You don't know anything, not where you came from, or where you're going. You don't know how this life gives and takes. But you know that my freckly cheek will always be your home, that place you go when your crib is scary and you win your way out of it.

Tonight when all your cousins left, dust settled and after warm jammies and a bottle of milk, you were toasted. You asked me loudly to rock you, to be with you, my one-year-old baby. 365 days of loving you. Not one night slept without you under the same roof.

All the small things have flown by, nursing, teething, napping, rolling, crawling, walking, drooling, crying, bathing. What remains is a gentle smile on my face as I think of you. Sleeping in your bedroom in the corner of our little house, in our little town. How important you are to me. Of all the babies in all the world, I saturate myself with thoughts of you. There's hardly a moment when I don't.

I love you baby.

Happy Birthday.