Dear son, sometimes I forget how little you are.

Dear son, sometimes I wonder if I’m doing motherhood right.

When you’re clinging to my leg whining. When you cry if I take away your toothbrush. If you pinch my cheeks, hit my arms, and bite my legs. If I get frustrated because I don’t know what you want and can’t help when you have a tantrum over it. When you wake up at night, or can’t be soothed when you’re sick. When I get frustrated when you won’t lay still for a diaper change and I throw up my hands in exasperation.

Dear son, sometimes I forget how little you are.

You don’t even have two years of life under your belt, and you don’t know a better way. I forget how hard it is for you to communicate to someone who has been speaking for 31 years. I forget how hard it is to be so small in a world so full of big people and things. Sometimes I forget to look at the world through your eyes, and see that sometimes it’s the little things that can cause big tears, but also big happiness.

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Dear son, you make me a better person.

You teach me to slow down and enjoy every moment, because you show me that change happens daily and you won’t be small forever. You show me that some germs and dirt are okay, because nothing is more fun than crawling around a playground or digging for worms in the garden. You remind me how beautiful a single dandelion on a warm spring day can be, or how wondrous it is that a giant metal bird can fly through the sky with the ease of a real one. You demonstrate to me what it means to have one person to be your world, because I am yours, and—truly—you are mine.

Dear son, sometimes I forget how little you are.

So I will try harder every day. Try harder to laugh. Try harder to be patient. Try harder to take a step back. The one thing I don’t have to try harder to do, though, is to love, because my whole heart swells with joy in every smile you give me.

Dear son, I love you.