With Love, Katie.
A short letter to my 2 and 5-year-old girls, after Christmas (2025). This could be your letter, your reflection too:
My sweet baby-girls,
It takes so much energy out of me to complain to your dad every afternoon… and I don’t even know why I’m doing it. The truth is, I have everything I’ve ever wanted in life. I have the most important things: a beautiful apartment we call home, a good car, a beautiful relationship with my neighbors, and finally, the most important: I have you, my favourite people in this whole big universe.
Yet today (again), I found myself talking about how hard it is with two little children. I complain that it is not the way I imagined it. Of course, later I find myself crying because I have literally immense expectations, yet you are only 2 and 5.
It’s been 5 years since I became a mom and still…I don’t even go to the bathroom when I want to, but only when I can. How much I miss those days when I went 5 days a week to the gym, or when I did some shopping alone.
Honestly, I miss having a “village” to support and help me. I miss a village to support my mental health, to support my freedom. To simply give me the opportunity to go buy a bread without having to dress up like a little girl.
My sweet 5 years old baby-girl,
My dear, bigger one, sometimes I speak as if all of this were somehow your fault. I remember once I even said it out loud: it is your fault, you are loud, you are messy… but this is such a big lie. You are doing everything exactly as you should, you are discovering the whole universe with your cutest curiosity and endless list of questions. You are more than perfect as you test the limits: my limits, your dad’s limits, the whole world’s limits.
Some days, I hear my own sentences in your voice, I see myself in your hand gestures, your tone. Sometimes it makes me laugh, but let’s not pretend we are perfect; other days it makes me want to cry, haha…
It is my responsibility to make you believe that we live in beautiful, colorful worlds. It is a sacred responsibility, so trust me, I am really trying my best. I know that in just a few years, I am going to miss every part of the present, and you won’t be hanging on my leg, asking me to sit down and build a 15th airplane from Lego or play some grandma-mother play, or shape forms and letters out of clay. This reality reminds me to be present (r at least to try my best). But I am trying.
So if one day you read these words, I want you to know that you have always been my greatest treasure. And as your mom, I am here to make you believe that you are perfect, the world is good and safe, and life is beautiful because of your kind soul.
Being your mom is a privilege I will never take for granted.
