Oh, Kalli.
I’m not even sure where to start with this child.
She’s three years old, currently attached to my leg while I’m typing this, and somehow already plays one of the biggest roles in my life.
Most people see the baby of the family.
The only girl.
The princess who has four older brothers completely wrapped around her finger.
The three-year-old who throws tantrums, says inappropriate things, demands attention, and has absolutely no problem telling you exactly what she thinks.
And they’re not wrong.
But they’re missing something.
Because this little girl has earned every ounce of that fire.
Kalli’s life started as a complete tornado.
My pregnancy with her was rough. I was hospitalized with blood clots in one of my lungs, far away from home and my other four children, while doctors prepared us for the possibility that she might need to be born early.
Her dad and I were also separating while I was pregnant.
Then she was born on my mom’s 50th birthday.
My mom called her the best birthday present anyone could have given her.
And then Kalli became my NICU baby.
Her oxygen was dangerously low and nobody could really tell me why. They thought maybe she’d swallowed fluid during delivery. Eventually she was breathing on her own and we were able to take her home.
The next day, I was back in the hospital with a chronic blood clot.
Looking back, I probably should have realized right then that this girl wasn’t going to do anything quietly.
At six months old, Kalli was diagnosed with asthma.
And she didn’t have the kind of asthma that was going to be easily managed and forgotten about.
She struggled to breathe.
A lot.
There was one night when I took her to the hospital because I knew something wasn’t right. Her oxygen was 89%, but I was told she was sick, she had asthma, and she was fine.
I wasn’t okay with that answer.
So I gave her another breathing treatment, put her in the car, and drove an hour and a half to the hospital where I’d received specialized care during my pregnancy with her.
They took one look at her breathing and admitted her.
Eventually, they did a biopsy.
And that’s when we found out that Kalli’s trachea is only open about 5%.
Her airways are also constricted.
She had pneumonia, bronchitis, and a respiratory virus all piled on top of each other.
And she hadn’t had a fever.
She wasn’t lethargic.
She was just living her normal life while struggling to breathe.
Because to Kalli, struggling to breathe was normal.
She didn’t know any different.
That experience changed everything for me.
It taught me that sometimes you have to trust your gut even when someone with a medical degree tells you everything is fine.
It taught me that advocating for your child isn’t being difficult.
And it taught me that I will drive however far I need to drive if it means my kid gets the care she needs.
Today, her medications keep her pretty well controlled most of the time, although I can practically predict a flare-up by looking at the weather.
And Kalli?
She couldn’t care less about any of that.
One morning, on the day of Louie’s graduation, I woke up to her struggling to breathe. I gave her emergency medication and waited for her breathing to improve.
Less than an hour later, she was still wheezing like crazy…
riding her skateboard down the sidewalk.
I told her maybe she should take a break and let her lungs do their job.
She looked at me and said:
“I’m good.”
😂
That was it.
No argument.
No explanation.
Just:
Mother, I know my limits. Please stop talking.
And honestly?
That little girl taught me something.
She taught me what strength actually looks like.
Because Kalli is the reason I started looking at my own life differently.
There’s a saying that goes something like, boys teach you what it’s like to be loved, girls teach you to love yourself.
I don’t know if that’s true for everyone.
But it was absolutely true for me.
Before Kalli, I was constantly bending myself into whatever shape everyone else needed.
I’d move things around.
Overextend myself.
Say yes when I wanted to say no.
Keep going when I was exhausted.
Make everyone else comfortable even when I wasn’t.
Then I had Kalli.
And suddenly I started asking myself:
“Would I be okay with Kalli doing this?”
“Would I want her accepting this kind of treatment?”
“Would I want her believing she has to lose herself to make everyone else happy?”
And if the answer was no…
I stopped.
I started standing up for myself.
Because someday this little girl is going to learn what a woman should accept by watching me.
And I refuse to teach her that losing yourself is the price of being loved.
So yes.
She’s loud.
She takes up space.
She says exactly what she’s thinking.
She tells people when they’re being rude.
She has absolutely no hesitation about telling someone they’re going to get their ass kicked if they mess with her brother.
And I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
Because I never want that fire to go out.
Kalli is Louie’s personal bodyguard.
Someone talks to him in a tone she doesn’t like?
“Do you want me to beat your ass?”
She’s three.
Three.
And somehow, I would still put money on her.
😂
She’s the little girl who once dropped her balloon somewhere she couldn’t reach, facepalmed, and said:
“Fuckin’ shit… Mommy, can you get my balloon for me please?”
She’s also the little girl who tells me she loves me approximately 150 times before breakfast.
Who wakes up with the biggest smile when she sees me.
Who wraps herself around my leg while I’m doing dishes.
Who grabs a second broom when I start sweeping because apparently we’re doing chores together.
Who holds my hand while I walk to the bathroom and then cheers for me when I’m done.
Yes.
She cheers for me for going to the bathroom.
There is no privacy.
There is barely sleep.
And there is absolutely no such thing as personal space.
But then there are moments when I look at her and realize how much she already understands about people.
She’ll notice when someone is frustrated and say,
“It’s okay to be frustrated sometimes. Let’s take a deep breath.”
Then she’ll actually make them take the deep breath and ask if they’re feeling better.
She knows how to say please.
She knows how to say thank you.
She knows how to apologize.
And she knows how to say no.
That last one makes me especially proud.
Because it’s something I’ve struggled with myself.
Kalli doesn’t seem to have that problem.
She will tell you exactly where her boundaries are.
And apparently, she will also tell you where your boundaries are if she thinks you’re being rude.
My dad once told her she needed to get out of his car.
She told him he wasn’t being nice, that he was rude, and that she was going to kick his ass.
So…
We’re working on the delivery.
Not necessarily the confidence.
😂
And somehow, this tiny little human is the perfect combination of princess and tomboy.
You’ll find her riding her bike, scooter, or skateboard down the sidewalk while wearing a princess dress.
She’ll wrestle with her brothers like she’s the same size they are.
She’ll fake being hurt just long enough to get them close enough to land a good hit.
She’ll demand to play whatever game her brothers are playing instead of playing whatever little-girl game she was supposed to be playing.
And then five minutes later she’ll wrap herself around my leg and tell me she loves me again.
That’s Kalli.
She’s chaos.
She’s sass.
She’s stubbornness.
She’s tenderness.
She’s strength.
She’s a tiny little girl who has already taught me more about boundaries, self-respect, advocacy, and resilience than I ever expected to learn from my own child.
She is my tiny terrorist princess.
My little ass kicker.
My lung warrior.
My shadow.
And one of the biggest reasons I see the world differently than I did before she came along.
I don’t want to raise a little girl who thinks being nice means allowing people to walk all over her.
I don’t want her to think love means sacrificing herself.
I don’t want her to ever dim her light because someone else is uncomfortable with how brightly she shines.
I want her to grow up knowing that she can be kind and have boundaries.
She can love people and say no.
She can be soft and strong.
She can wear a princess dress and ride a skateboard.
She can be sweet as hell and still threaten to kick someone’s ass when they mess with her brother.
Because apparently…
that’s my daughter.
And I wouldn’t have her any other way.