Letters to my daughter

Every few weeks I'm writing a letter to my baby girl. Ron has contributed a letter to the book as well, but it's mostly me opening up about my experience, my hopes and dreams, and my excitement about becoming a mom.

Tonight I wrote about how I hope she will be a positive person and that I'd like to teach her that beauty comes from the inside not the outside. A lesson that took me a long long time to learn (sometimes I'm still learning it) is that it's okay for people not to like you and that you don't have to please everyone. I never want her to be ashamed for who she is - I used to apologize for being myself and I want her to carry the confidence to know that it's okay to be unique.

In the first entry, I wrote that Ron and I won't be perfect parents and sometimes we'll make the wrong choices. . . but this journal is my promise that I will strive to be the best I can be. And when I know better, I'll do better. Always.

I don't really have a plan for giving this to her - maybe when she goes off to college or gets married . . . maybe when she has a baby of her own. Right now, I'll just continue to add entries to help me remember what I was thinking during these special times - I know it's going to pass so quickly...