Around this time seven months ago your daddy and I were able to go see you for the first time just coming out of the OR. We've seen you post op before, more times that we would like but on that particularly morning you looked like a little doll. Your hair was done in pigtails for the first ever (and last time since then) by one of our favorite nurses Shellie. You were still on the ventilator but there weren't a ton of lines running and the amount of meds wasn't exhausting.
Granted you were a lot bigger at thirty whopping pounds than that very first time post-Norwood when just about every inch of you was covered with something related to medicine or monitoring. But you laid there post-transplant in a peaceful place and you were so pink. Like newborn baby pink - it was staggering. I know we talk about that old IV scar on your right ankle often enough because you look at it to this day and say "Look it's Pink!" but that scar was so ugly and brown pre-transplant and that morning it had never looked pinker. It's actually still healing and improving to this day.
You have the most beautiful little rosebud lips and up until that moment your lips and scar never revealed their true beauty. Your Nonno likes to say that the gift of your new heart and watching you recover was like watching a wilting flower enjoy a good rainstorm. The blossoming that you have done in the last seven months is a miracle. Some people wait all their lives to witness a miracle or a shooting star and you are both Olivia.
Last night was like any other night, a fight over whether or not you take your pills (you lost), not wanting to sleep in your bed (you lost that one too). You are such a normal three year old that I often forget how unique your first three years have been. I often overlook the struggles you've endured and get more frustrated with you than I would like - but it is a sign of what a fighter you are and the type of spirit that you possess. My lord are you stubborn - I did not know that someone so little could be so stubborn and you do things that I know you inherited from me and I am aghast and feeling pretty sorry for your Nonno and Nonna for the amount of eye rolling and sighing that I must have (and still do) cause them.
Despite your drama, this new refusal to take your pills, your temper tantrums and anything else that is going to give us all gray hairs - you CAN BE the sweetest most polite little girl. You ask how I feel because you know I get headaches, tell people to drive carefully when they are leaving the house, ask how everyone slept first thing in the morning and your new one from last night "I missed you Mommy" after I got back from running errands. Melt my heart.
I love you little lady
Mommy
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