Hi baby girl, You are already my world. I want you to know that the day you were born, you made me realize a few things. Things that I already knew but needed to be reminded of in the moment. The day you were born was not a good morning for me, that is, until you came into it. My body was aching from the cold that I was trying to get over and I was studying at my desk for two exams that I had the next day with a raw, tissue-rubbed noise, drowning in a sea of stress and miscellaneous notebook paper. I knew you were blessing our lives that day because your mommy and grandma had talked to me that morning and that was the only thing that was on my mind. But, the stress of the week seemed to cloud the reality that you would be our lives so soon. And I knew that you would change my life but I didn’t realize how much you were going to change my life even in the seconds within you coming into it.

So, Auntie B was sitting at her desk and her phone buzzed under the lined white paper that flooded it. I didn’t pay much attention to it because I had the conjugations of the Spanish future and past participle trailing through my head. After giving into the fact that I couldn’t stuff my mind with any more information than I had already and with only thirty minutes left until my exam, I picked up my phone. I opened the screen and a picture of your face popped up. I immediately cried tears of joy. I want you to know that before that moment, I had never cried tears so genuinely derived from happiness ever in my life. There was your face, a face that I had never seen before but somehow looked familiar. Your precious little face gave me everything I needed in that weak, stressful moment and you didn’t even know that you helped me so much.

You made me realize that there are things in life that are so much more important than sitting at your desk, stressing and complaining. Baby girl, life can be stressful, sometimes it will feel like there are moments when you can’t let go of the stress you have on your shoulder. But, always remember, a shoulder is just a shoulder, it can’t always bear the burden of a million things. Take time to realize things can be so much worse than the stress you have in that moment. And remember that the little miracles, like yourself, help you remind yourself of that.

I know you are just a baby now, your cute little bum is only a few days old but, when you’re older you can understand this. I want you to remember that you shouldn’t worry so much about the future and the things that you experience daily. Coming from me, who worries about the small things daily, it takes away from the things that you can be happily crying about, like your precious little face for me the day you were born. Worrying about life is part of life but trying to solve your worries is just as easy as trying to solve a quantum physics problem by chewing bubble gum. Sometimes the real problems in your life are the things that you never thought about on a daily basis. They are things that you will never categorize as worries. Those kinds of worries will hit you hard on random Tuesdays when you are lying in bed at 3 a.m. and when you are old enough to know them and to have gone through them. And when these times come, know I will be waiting by the phone to have you call me and tell you everything you need to hear. Just like you gave me everything I needed in the small seconds of seeing your precious newborn face.

Always remember that advice is a form of nostalgia. All of the things that I can tell you are only the things I have experienced myself. That being said, I still have so much more to learn. And I have no doubt that you will be able to teach me new things in days that I watch you grow and in the day I hear your first laugh and see you take your first steps. I can’t wait to see where your beautiful life takes you and how your beautiful life helps me to grow. I love you forever and always, baby girl.