Two.

My dearest sweet Anna girl,                                                           3.28.2014

Good Morning!  The sun is shining this morning and it seems almost anything may be possible.  As most mornings, I woke up today with you on my mind.  I’m so proud of you and your effort to get moving this spring, it is a wonderful thing to do just for you and the funny thing is before you told me about it the other day, I already had this message in mind just for you.

What I had planned to say was every day take five minutes to just move.  You can sing to the crazy “touch down every morning” song, do some sit ups, walk around the block, go up and down the stairs…what ever just make it about you.  I think you’ll be surprised that you will come to cherish those five minutes; more than cherish you’ll covet them.  You’ll want it to be just a minute longer because you will find that in those five minutes you are concentrating on YOU.  Not just building muscles in your body but freeing your mind.  We often neglect our minds and just do the same tasks over and over on autopilot but how often do we take five minutes to allow ourselves to reflect-on our day, a conversation we’ve had, a dream we’re chasing or what we’d like to be.

Remember, confidence is beautiful…this time each day is not about your size, it’s not about your weight, it’s about being confident about who you are and allowing the world to see exactly how beautiful you are!!  Your challenge for today is to get out that awesome calendar and your red sharpie and every day this coming week I want to see you put a giant red X on every day as you take just 5 minutes to move and think about you!!

You are amazing and I am oh so crazy blessed to call you my daughter.  Have a fabulous week and remember…

I love you,

Mom

One.

My dearest sweet Anna girl,                                                                   3.24.2014

Good morning…it is a beautiful day, full of bright possibilities.  I’m sorry if I’ve been a negligent mom the last seven weeks-until yesterday I don’t think I realized just how sick I’ve been or for how long.  The clarity and energy I have now are amazing, possibly even better than before.

Enough about me-this letter is for you.  I really enjoyed our time together over spring break, every time I see you it is like an affirmation of the amazing woman you are blossoming into becoming.  Yes, blossoming because I believe until we die we never fully discover who exactly we are.

          I want you to know I love you.

                   I want you to know I love you.

                             I want you to know I love YOU!!

I was nineteen once.  I was full of emotions, hormones, fear, self doubt, dreams, ambitions, hopes, concerns, everything your life is made of at exactly this moment I was there with one exception-my Mom didn’t talk to me or share things with me.  She simply berated my decisions, and made me feel even worse than I did.  I never want to do that to you.  I instead want to constantly be that breath of air that lifts you up when you think you’re going to collapse.  I want to be there encouraging you, helping you go forward with your life and hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls and mistakes I once made.

Those feelings of doubt and self loathing that I see in your eyes break my heart.  You don’t have to say anything because it is like a reflection of me and I want you to know you are not broken, you are not less than, you are not dumb, ugly or stupid.  You my dear are normal.  You are trying to find yourself and your future.  Every choice you make is a step in the right direction—we learn from our mistakes and our failures just like we do from our successes!

Oops, I am almost to run out of page and I vowed that I would keep this to only one page so for today my sweet girl, I want you to turn this piece of paper over and write three things you LOVE about Anna.  It can be your ugly toes or your sweet smile, anything as long as it is just about YOU.

I love you,

Mom

Why sprinkle?

My number one angel girl is in college.  Being nineteen is such a difficult time.  Things seem so big, so scary, so real...I remember being there.  So in this blog, I'm going to try and give my kids a little sprinkling of what I wish I'd had back then.

I love you,
Mom