Alynne Tiffany- One Year

To follow suite, I am writing you a letter my dearest Alynne,

It has been one year, in that one year there have been 365 days, 8765 hours, 525949 minutes, and an incalculable amount of seconds, well actually it is calculable, its a number that is represented in scientific notation, however I haven't taken math or science for the better part of 7 years honey so I am not going to sit here an calculate what that number would be, it's enough to say that I've kept track of every single second that you've been alive this last year.  You've brought me and Mami so much joy.  I've loved seeing you grow day by day, and have watched you learn.  It started with learning how that night time was meant for sleeping, those first 3 months were pretty rough, more so on Mami than on me, but I still remember the sleepless nights, waking up at 2am to feed and change you.  Then you learned how to roll over, then how to crawl, and how to cruise on furniture, and recently you've started taking bolder movements, letting go of furniture and standing solo, though only for a few seconds.  So today I write this post and it has been published at the exact time you where born on November 20th 2014, at 9:34AM, you are officially one year old my sweet baby girl.  You're incredibly smart, you must get that from your mother because I've never met a smarter woman!  Your incredibly beautiful, again, I attribute this to your mother! You're so curious, I'll take credit for that one, you love to read, mami and I have both taught you to love reading.  Alynne you're my first born daughter and I love you so much honey.  I love sharing whatever it is that I'm eating with you, small moments like that bring so much joy to my heart.  Every night when I go to bed I always have the urge to just wake you up so we can play, even though doing this would be a terrible, terrible idea.  I pray for you and with you every night, I pray that I can show you how much we need Jesus.  I also pray for your future, I pray that I am a good husband to your mother, and a good example of how a man should love his wife.  I can tell you right now honey, that no man will ever be good enough for my little girl, but as long as he loves Jesus and loves you, I will welcome him into our family with open arms.  As I sit here and write this post, you're playing by your book shelf and it's close to bed time.  You'll probably have no memory of this first year of your life, but your mother and I definitely will.  We will remember that terrible diaper rash you had that brought us to tears because we didn't' know how to help you.  We will remember your first cold and how worried we were when you had a fever.  We will remember the dreaded week that you had Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease.  We'll also remember your first apartment.  This was your first home, on the Upper West Side, a small 1 bedroom that we all slept in.  Most of all I'll always remember the very first time I laid eyes on you.  How beautiful you were, how much joy I felt, how the tears just flowed out of me when I saw you and was able to finally hold you after months of anticipation.  You were so beautiful and you still are. Here's what you looked like moments after birth. 

These are the things that I'll never forget honey.  I love you so much and hope to celebrate many more birthday and milestones with you, mami, and your future siblings.