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Stephanie Howell

reading, organizing, shopping, momming too close to the sun. Home is wherever the Army sends us.

To My Daughters

To my sweet daughters…I love being your mother. I love every beautiful,sweet,infuriating,and exhausting moment. I love it even when I hate it.

I love the chaos,the volume,the agonizing repetitiveness. I love your four beautiful faces,your eight heart-stopping eyes,your eight soft hands,your forty sticky fingers and your forty sweet toes.

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Harper I am so proud of you. You have gotten so good at reading and writing. You sing and talk all day long. You tattle too much,you worry too much,you narrate our lives.

You are beautiful. You have dark skin and dark eyes and your heart is full of light. You are very particular. You like things just so.

Your imagination is boundless. You are so very creative and imaginative. You have the best memory and the most discerning eye for detail of any child I’ve ever known.

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You are changing right before my eyes. Gone are the chubby cheeks and the belly. Instead there are coltish legs and soon-to-be-lost teeth.

You are kind. And a wonderful big sister. I don’t know what I would do without your help.

You are dramatic. Everything is a HUGE deal. You live full force,full strength,full fledged.

 

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Sadie I am so proud of you. You are such a joy to me. Mischevious,sly,constantly perturbed,always observing.

You don’t let much get to you. You just don’t care about the things that don’t matter. When you cry, I know something must really be wrong because you just don’t cry.

You think you are big enough to not need a nap but you are wrong. When you are tired you get prickly and a little bit mean. I can read your emotions on your face so easily when you are tired…when you are worn out you don’t hold your cards quite so close to your chest.

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You love your sisters so much,but you also love doing things to get them worked up. You know all the right buttons to push.

You remind me of your daddy in so many ways. No fear,not very emotional, but the biggest cuddler in the world. The first to tell me you love me.

You are so beatiful. Dirty blonde hair,cleft in your chin,fair skinned.

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Lucy girl you fill this house with squeals, with laughter,and with kisses. You find so much pleasure in everything. You run everywhere,laughter trailing behind you.

You moan when you eat because you love food so much. You jump, clap,talk jibber jabber constantly. You look like a doll.

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Everyone falls in love with your gummy/toothy smile,your chubby thighs,and your ponytail.

You are constantly finding and hiding away crayons. Then when no one is looking you unearth the crayons and decorate every possible surface. You find this to be the funniest thing in the world.

You LOVE your binkie,bananas,strawberries,and waffles. You are four pounds heavier than your sister. You are the love of our lives.

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Cate you are the love of our lives too. You are more prickly than your sister. You are timid where Lucy is wild. You take time to warm up but when you do you shower so much love, so many kisses.

You are small but mighty. When you make up your mind to do something there is no standing in your way.

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You love bananas,cheese,waffles,juice. But sometimes you hate them too. You are mercurial,loving what you hated moments before and vice versa.

If I don’t understand your baby gibberish you SCREAM at me and arch your back. You are already a consummate hissy-fit-thrower at 19 months old.

You are either insanely happy or dissaproving…it depends on the moment.

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To my daughters…thank you for making me a better person. Thank you for teaching me how to love more than i thought I could,how to feel more frustrated than I thought possible,how to navigate the complicated waters of motherhood.

Thank you for getting me through some of the toughest,scariest times of my life.

Thank you for forgiving me when I am abrupt and impatient with you. I am learning too and sometimes I make mistakes as well.

Thank you for making me less selfish,more fragile,less and more worried all at once.

I can’t wait to watch you grow. To watch you soar. To be there when your heart is broken,when you fall in love,when you make mistakes.

I look forward to every moment of it. Even the not so great moments.All of the moments are a gift. I love you, my daughters.

Love,Mama.

Comments

  1. Gracious. So beautifully written and such charming, lovely photos! I’m going through a pretty tough few days with my gaggle of boys right now, so I needed this! Now, I need to go dry my eyes and give them a hug!

  2. this is beautiful, steph.
    love it. love you.
    cannot wait to see ALL you girls in person and kiss all your faces (except maybe sadie and lucy wouldn’t be so keen on that plan at first, if i read the above correctly…. ;))
    xooxoxo.

  6. Got me all teary, Stephanie! Isn’t so amazing how different all of our children are? I am constantly amazed at the differences in my two. God is an amazing creator b/c from the get go they are different. Amazing. Much love to you and all your beautiful chicks.

  8. You always have the best words….beautiful, kind, precious, honest words….your daughters will be so grateful to have these words as they grow older! Keep up the fantastic job of mama that you do! BTW I’m headed to Savannah week after next just to see all the terrific things you blog and tweet about!!

  10. Stephanie Howell, you are amazing. Your words often bring tears to my eyes or make me laugh. Your girls are so lucky to you for their mama. Enjoy every moment of your crazy, busy life.

  12. what a beautiful gift for your girls. isn’t it amazing how uniquely God creates each child to be? i am constantly in awe of this fact. what a precious post to read today…and what gorgeous pictures these are. treasures, for sure.

  13. 4 beautifully unique personalities and girls!
    they are AMAZING steph, to think that you are raising such wonderful girls is something to be VERY proud of!
    tara

  15. Soooo LOVE this post! Having two daughters who are 5 and almost 2- I am constantly comparing them to each other. I get frustrated with myself because they are so different,but for some reason I stupidly think they should be alike. They are their own person and I love every quality,quirck,habit,and idea they have. Olivia’s dark brown almost black eyes,excessive curly brown hair and tan skin vs.Avery’s ash colored hair,tame soft curls,mocha eyes and Irish skin remind me so much of your Harper and Sadie.:) thanks for the post!

  22. What a BEAUTIFUL & ♥ WARMING post.
    It brought me to tears.
    I LOVE how you highlighted both the good and the bad in each of your girls and also yourself.
    You are an amazing mother (even in the moments when you don’t feel like it).

  23. What a lovely gathering of words and photos. Such a treasure. I can’t even begin to imagine how absolutely precious those pictures of each them individually with you will mean to each of them when they grow up. You look fabulous! J is going to be drooling when he sees these. 🙂

  24. I love seeing your beautiful family and reading your stories. This is such a wonderful post. There is no doubt when I read every word you wrote about each daughter that your love is equal and abundant. Amazing. God bless!

  26. Wow!!! I just love when you write posts like this. I hope that you incorporate these precious notes for your girls into their albums. I know they would treasure these words forever!

  31. As always, beautiful piece, and the photos of you and the girls are priceless. I really get warm fuzzies each time I read one of your blog posts which thankfully come straight to my inbox. You are an amazing woman and I don’t know how you do what you do but you are a great woman. I hope you have a lovely week.

  36. Oh how I loved this post! The pictures, each and every one of them are so precious and really capture their personalities (and yours!) xo

  38. This is so lovely! I love the way that you’ve described their characters and strengths. This is a reminder that I need to start writing letters to my own children.. 🙂

  39. LOOOOVE this post!! I love the way you love and write about your girls. So much love for them is in your writing, even with all the crazyiness you know them soooo well.
    You are all blessed to have each other, you are a great mama to them. Enjoy and savor each moment!
    I need to get a tissue now, thanks for the happy tears and for sharing your wonderful family with us.

  40. So sweet. Each of their little (big?) personalities are so interesting and individual. Watch out Rhode Island: the Howell girls are about to take you by storm! 😉

  42. Im new to your blog. You are a natural beauty and its hard for most adults to look good in photos, but you do. Your face has the bone structure of a model, maybe you should look into doing some modeling.

  43. ok, from now on when I feel the need to shed some tears I’ll just come here and do it…lol…how beautiful!! someday when they are all reading,they have to read this post, your photos are precious, just love this post!!

  45. LOVE THIS! thank you!!! just when i have been questioning if i’m doing this mama thing right… i MUST do this for my Ps… they HAVE to know.. thank you for the inspiration!

  46. Would you stop making me cry!! Gads, you always get me when I am least expecting it! The other times you make me laugh.

  48. Love this! It made me tear up thinking of how thankful I am for my three girls and their unique personalities. Thank you for sharing this reflection!

  49. I believe this is the most perfect post you’ve ever written. Your daughters will treasure this FOREVER and it will always remind them how lucky they are that God chose YOU to be their mama!