Lady & Andy Family

A letter to my son on his very first birthday, 22 June 2013

Dear Axell,

I can’t believe it’s a year already. Where does the time go? I’m in awe of everything you can do, the little giggles, clapping your hands and the way you dance whenever you hear music.

I love everything about you. I love how you smile at me when you wake up in the morning. I love how excited you seem to be with the new day, no matter how bad the night before was.

I love your chubby thighs. I love your perfect little fingers and toenails. I love your soft black hair. I love how your hair looks after your naps. I love your little belly.

I love how you giggle when I say your name. I love how you smile with your eyes. I love how you make a face when you taste something new for the first time.

I love how you ham for the camera and show off those 8 pearly whites.

I love how excited you are when we play with you.

I love how fast you crawl when something across the room catches your eye, and how your cute cloth booty wiggles when you do.

I love how you look so joyous when your father throws you in the air and catches you. I love that you make the people around you happy when they see you. I love that your grandparents are almost melting with their love for you.

I love that I have been there with you everyday in your first year and watched you grow and learn. I love that you make all my days full and meaningful and fun and joyous. I love being your Mama.

This day brings so much to celebrate. Obviously and most importantly we are celebrating the culmination of 40 weeks of pregnancy, and 22 hours of labor, ; the moment you took your first breath and came triumphantly into this world. We are also celebrating the anniversary of that first time at the breast, and despite the odds and the difficulties we are still nursing today stronger than ever. I feel so blessed to be able to give you that source of nurturing, nourishment and comfort. I promise to breastfeed you full term, and not to wean you due to societal pressures or for my own benefit. I will nurse you until you are ready to stop. And when you’re a doctor, a lawyer or an astrophysicist I’ll know it was because breastmilk makes you smarter.

We are also celebrating the day our family became whole. I know God gave me you for a reason. My heart was too big and I needed you to fill it. I thought I knew love when I met your father, but I didn’t know true love until you. I loved you before I even met you. I lay awake at night just listening to your heartbeat. Each and every kick put a smile on my face and a tear in my eye. Only you could know the love I feel for you, for you are the only one that has heard my heartbeat from the inside.

So a very happy first birthday to you, happy nursiversary, and a happy BIRTH day to me. I vow to cherish every moment, because I know when I blink you will be a man. I love you little Axell...

Love,

Your Mama (Lady Fellicia Setiawan)

 — with Andi Hartono and Axell Alexander Cung.