The Boost

Dear Addison,

  I read this for the hundredth time a few days ago, and thought of you for the hundredth time.

Because you my girl just may be the fiercest of us all. You didn't start out that way. You came into this world gentle and quiet. You stayed my baby for much longer than any of your siblings. You would gently lay your tiny hands against my cheek and let them rest there for minutes. Many referred to you as their "angel baby" because you were just that a little tiny angel. Not to say you weren't a fighter. No, you have always been a fighter. Sometimes I hurt a little to think of all the health battles you have already fought. You started out on an uphill battle, but you always fought and you have always won. You were my silent martyr to it all, then you turned two, and every ounce of energy and fiest and personality that you had been storing for the last 2 years burst out of every inch of your body. And it hasn't stopped bursting. 

You have one pace these days, and it is turbo. You didn't walk til you were 18 mo. and now you just run. You didn't roll or sit or crawl or do much moving til much later than most babies and now it would take shackles and a tranquilizer to keep you still.  You run, jump, roll, dance and shake til mommy is past exhaustion and then you do it some more. 

We call you The Boost or Booster which I suppose stemmed from your nick name "Addi Boo" when you were still a baby. But you left behind all baby and the name transformed right along with you. You have handled the change of states with ease, of course your world has always consisted of mommy, daddy, brother, sisters and toys. So really this place is not much different than before. And you already had your first surgery here, so there's that as well.

I was looking through my pictures recently and felt like you weren't present in many of them. And then I realized it is because 90% of pictures I take of you look like this,

 And if I beg and plead for you to sit still and look at me I get something more like this...

So most all shots of you are action shots with a little bit of blur. And even those have to be taken in a room where I can shut the doors to keep you somewhat contained.

You have been with me for 32 months, and we have braved a lot in those 32 months you and I. From house quarantines to surgeries and physical therapy to skin biopsy. Sometimes I worry that this will always be life for you, going from one doctors office to the next always waiting for that next "medical shoe" to drop. I have a feeling that even if it is you will still be running 100mph in between each visit. :)

   We have been really working on talking lately. I don't know if you prefer not to talk or if all the ear surgeries make all those sounds jumble in your brain. Maybe you just know that your big sister will say everything for you and then some. But words do not come. This is not to say that you are silent. You my daughter are anything but that. You have ways of making your opinions known, and they can fill every corner of the house. :) Which is probably why I keep pushing those words so much. I feel your lack of verbal communication frustrates you more than me at times. I just know you have stories to tell, we just need to help you find the words. Perhaps one day all those stored up words will come pouring out much like your personality did.

 For now we will just run marathons from the moment your feet touch ground. We will sort shapes while I repeatedly say "purple" "blue" "yellow". We will look through your shelves of  "baku" (books) though you never let me read past the 3rd page before you pull it out of may hands and flip through all the pages yourself. We will say "ni ni luh you" (night night, love you) and "bye, ee aay rr" ( bye see you later)  50 times each night because that is the amount of times you get out of bed and have to be put back. We will ride your pony and say "woo hoo das fun" (woo hoo that's fun). You will color on paper til the second I turn around then you will color on walls. You will dump the stuffed animals 5 times a day and I will pick them up 6. You will beg to go "sie" (outside) and maybe it will warm up enough that we actually can. You will torture the "puppy" (which is one of the only words you actually say correctly) but luckily she will still lick your fingers and make you giggle. You will find a way to get your hands on every toothbrush in the house and hide them in un-findable places. You will teach me more about patience, worry, exhaustion, pride and joy. Because you might be little Boost but you are fierce.

All my love,

           momma