Dear One Year Old,

Today marks the first whole year you've been on this earth. It also went by faster than anything on this earth. 
To those childless people who are struggling with time going by too quickly, you might want to rethink having kids, ever. Your hours tend to turn into minutes and your minutes into seconds. 
But, like my brother said, "Congratulations, you made it through the first year." It's so true, I think the first year is the hardest most insane time. It's bazaar. They grow and learn faster than any other time in there lives. It's almost like life's crazy little test- If you make it through this first year of crazy, morphed, non-normal living, you probably have a good chance of making it through the rest of their childhood. To experience having a baby and raising it into a child is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's the hardest, craziest thing. And because of that people ask why in heavens name would you even want a child. They're so much work it feels like they literally take the life out of you. If someone could answer that in a logical way, they deserve a gold medal. The most I can say is that it's all about, the most illogical thing on this earth, LOVE. 
To have a child is love. 
To have a blank canvas in your arms the moment it's born, it's so fresh, clean, and untouched. It makes you never want the tiny, warm thing to leave your arms. But that love helps you give it up. It makes you hold your baby out to the world and let every person it comes across leave a tiny mark or a big stroke on it's blank canvas. And you watch it form into the beautiful piece it will someday be. I love you Darby Margo. I can't wait to see the beautiful thing you'll become. You've changed me and taught me so much in just one year. I can't wait to see you live a crazy, beautiful life in this wild world.
xo -Mama