Your first Birthday.

Dear Leila,

Yesterday you turned one. I spent the whole day thinking about what I was doing exactly a year before. Counting down the minutes until 10pm. The exact time you were born. The tenth hour of the tenth day of the second month of the year 2010. You've turned into such a magical little person Leila, I am so happy you are my daughter.

Your dad and I took you out for pasta last night. It's your favourite food. You sat there slurping up noodles with an air of contentment on your face. Everyone kept commenting on what a happy baby you are. You charmed an old couple and a couple with a sleeping six month old,and every server in the place.

This has been a hard year in a lot of ways Leila. Your dad and I are no longer together. We just aren't good that way. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to take you out for dinner every year on your birthday. That doesn't mean we're not going to go to every single silly school thing you ever do. Together. Because we're your parents, and we love you. Because your dad let me listen to the same two Neil Young albums over and over and over again for twenty hours while I was in labour (I think he slipped Paul Simon in there once). Because you're the best thing both of us has ever done.

I was sacred of you at first. Scared of having a daughter, of raising a woman. But the second night you were alive I was lying in bed after your uncle Chris and auntie Chelso had gone home, and you lifted your head up off my chest and looked at me with these hilarious crossed eyes and my heart broke and melted into a thousand pieces. And I still haven't found all of them. I'm still picking them up every time you do something new and sweet. Every time you play peek-a-boo with me. Every time you smile and curl up in my lap with a bottle. Every time you say, "ma ma ma ma".

Love you kiddo.

Ma ma ma ma

Day One.

(Yes, that's an icepack I'm holding on my boob.)