My Little Reid Is One!

Dear Reid,

My little Reid. I hope you read this when you are in your 20’s and don’t remember how your hair smelled like honey fresh out of the bath. How you stood in your crib and waited for someone to come rescue you so you could jump up and down and squeal every morning (exactly at 6:02 a.m.). Or how your brother continually tried to wrestle with you when you were much too little and you pulled his hair in your only defense.

I hope your life is full of adventure. I hope you see many foreign shores and eat questionable foreign food. I hope you have the gypsy-blood your dad and I have, which makes you want to see as much of the world as your wallet allows. I want you to get lost. To meet new people and find them again many years later in a different country.

I want you to be happy. Not just for fleeting moments like graduation or on your wedding day, but perpetual happiness. True contentment. True peace. The kind of happiness that gives you an internal compass of gratitude that will you carry you through tough times.

I hope you follow your dreams and not succumb to what the world tells you you should do. I want you to have a job that makes YOU happy. Life is too short to be miserable. Your grammy (my mom) told me this in her last week of life. Try to honor her by living this out.

Most of all, I hope we raise you with so much love that you feel safe, heard, and cared for–because you are–and always will be.

I love you, bumblebee,

Mama