Mabel Molanphy

I real­ly can’t believe she’s 4. Like, hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing that she’s four years old. I’ve decid­ed that when peo­ple say it goes fast, it’s real­ly after age 2. Because those first two years were real­ly hard for me…

Dear Mabel:

• You’re hap­py. Real­ly, tru­ly the pure def­i­n­i­tion of happy.
• You love peo­ple. Any­one, any col­or, any size, any age. You want to talk to them.
• You are pre­co­cious. I’d nev­er heard that word in my life before your exis­tence, but I’ve com­plete­ly lost track as to how many strangers or oth­er first-time-meet­ings bring out that word.
• You just want to be with mama. If we go some­where, you just ask to be at home, with mama. To play at home.
• You have amaz­ing man­ners. You are very in-con­trol of your emo­tions and using words to express exact­ly what you need and how.
• You have amaz­ing self-dis­ci­pline. I am amazed.
• I want noth­ing more than to enroll you in Montes­sori school, but I can’t give it to you [right now] and it destroys me inside. I can’t wait until I get to look back and tru­ly under­stand the Lord’s rea­sons for these things.
• You are loved. By mama and dad­dy, but by so many strangers as well. You tru­ly have a gift.
• You are spe­cial. You have a pur­pose in this life that is greater than I can know, but I feel it. And I hope I can hon­or you by prepar­ing you for it.