To my dear, sweet, precious Emery

My sweet and precious Emery,
I am writing this letter to you when you are two years old so I can explain to you about my love for you. I hope that someday you will read it and understand. You see, I show you that I love you in all different ways. When you were newly born I showed you that I loved you by sacrificing my sleep to feed you when you cried, by rocking you and singing to you and bathing you and changing you when you were wet or messy. Now I show love to you by hugging you and kissing you. By reading you stories and taking long splash-filled baths with you. By taking you to Sabbath school and church to learn to love Jesus. By playing with you and feeding you and clothing you and taking you outside to run blissfully in the sunshine.
But there's another way I show you that I love you. By teaching you to obey me. And so, my beautiful, darling girl, I am your mommy and even though you don't know it now, I know better than you do what is best for you. I know that it isn't good for you to watch Sesame Street all day long. I know that you can't eat only cookies and cheese. I know that at 12:00 in the afternoon you need to sleep. I know that playing with kitchen knives or electric sockets is dangerous for you. I know that sometimes I have to hurt you to make you get better when you're sick. And you don't like any of these things. And you fight me and cry and say, "NO!" as loud as you can.
But I will keep putting you down for your nap at 12:00 even when you don't want to, and I will keep giving you healthy food even when you cry because I'm putting the cookies away. And I will keep the TV off even though you point to it and say, "Elmo!" and I will keep knives and electric sockets away from you. And even though it breaks my heart, I will hurt you, if thats what it takes for you to heal.
You see, sweet baby, if I didn't love you I would spare myself all that difficulty. I would let you stay up as long as you want, I would feed you cookies and cheese all day, and Sesame Street would be on a continuous loop. Because, let me tell you, that would be way easier for me! But in the long run, I know these things will hurt you and make you an unhappy person. So when you get put in time-out and all those tears are cried that's me saying, "I love you my sweet child."
And I hope that someday when you are an adult you will read this and forgive me for all the tears I caused in your childhood.
And I hope also that as an adult you will also remember that we are all called children of God. And that even though we sometimes don't believe it, He knows what is best for us better than we do. And that when we are going through something hard, that it just might be God's firm but loving hand saying, "I love you my sweet child."
With all my love,
Your Mommy