Things that make my heart melt

While it will never be the life that you want for your child, having a child with chronic health problems has some wonderful blessings that go with it.  I have an especially close relationship with my children, partially (I believe) because they know that we will go to the ends of the Earth to help them, we appreciate them for who they are and don't try to change them, and because we know when to be gentler, when they need us.

Emily's hands are affected more than any other part of her body.  It makes it very hard for her to write.  On a good day they are swollen.  That said, it is very difficult to decipher her writing, but I found something tonight that I found so sweet, so beautiful that it just really made me melt.  I went into her backpack to make sure that she had everything that she will need for school tomorrow.  I found something that I hadn't noticed on Friday.  At first I thought that it was a birthday invitation.  However, the envelope simply said "Mommy".   Inside I found this:
"Dear Mommy,
I am having P.E. outside during recess and I am having fun. But I am pooped out from the sun.  It is hot, I have to sit out a lot.  But I (illegible)
Your little girl,
Emily"

So, I'm thinking here I have this wonderful, sweet, precious, fragile child and during the middle of a busy school day, she's thinking of me.  How special is that???  It's been a hard month for her, and it seems to be getting tougher.  I think I'm going to try to move our rheumy appointment up a week or two if we can.  She's taking two baths a day lately, and telling me tonight that she was so stiff that she couldn't get up.  She asked me for help getting dressed today.  But she's so sweet, her personality so charming that we never mind.  It's the people like her that take every day as a wonderful new challenge, that fight without complaining, that make the best of every situation that really have it right.  Problems are just challenges waiting to be worked out.  If you can approach them with optimism, you have a greater chance of success.  That is how this little bean lives her life.  That girl is my hero.