Private Island.

Dear Matilda,

I want you to know, someday when you're older, that you're not what you'd picture the youngest child to be. You're not the baby that's always fussing in the high chair. You don't have an unattended runny nose and you're not always dressed in hand-me-downs and left to your own devices. You're none of those things.

You are the love of my life.

My one soft pillow, my favorite food, my dream that became real.

You're beautiful, exceptionally so, and I never get over it. I agree with people with my eyes open wide, "I know, I know, she is isn't she?" You smell like honey and cinnamon rolls and limeade. You're pliable and content and friendly and luscious.

You will forever be happy on my hip, as my appendage, hooked to me by an invisible tether, you sway to and fro back and forth as I scrub my entire house clean of little girl messes with my one free arm.

You like everyone else, but you love me and you don't try to hide it. We go most places together. To girl's nights, to get-togethers, to help in school classrooms, to doctor's appointments, to the grocery store.

You rarely cry, and rarely even make a sound. Only soft, infrequent ones, and they surprise even you. You look around, "who could have made that cooing sound?", and continue on sucking your fingers.

Most days you're wrestling me, you're up and down and all around. I tickle the back of your thighs, kiss your wet chin, scratch and tickle your pudgy back. You've got saddlebag legs that can stop my healthy heart, just like that. Sometimes you close your eyes for a second while you smile, and it creates sunlight inside of me.

I never let you cry to sleep, I never let you cry at all.

When you lay on the floor, tired and frustrated, you start to cry out for me, just a little. I start toward you right away, Lillie and the other girls following close behind, wanting and needing my attention, perhaps the phone ringing, and Daddy emailing.

I drop everything for you.

You get me, you get me first, everyone else can wait just offshore. It's just me and you, Matilda, on our own private island. Loving each other.