Happy birthday, littlest cub!

I think I should rename this blog the Birthday Book. I seem only to make it over here when my kids have a birthday and I'm weepy.

And here I am again.

My tiniest bear cub will be one year old tomorrow. I don't even have her birth story on this blog! (Heck, I don't have her older brother's birth story on this blog.)

We had an early birthday party for her at church today, and it hit me last night that she really, truly is growing up. I didn't tell her she could. She doesn't seem to care.

I sneaked into her room last night and watched her sleeping. She was so peaceful. Not a single cry or fuss. And I didn't wait for one. I picked her up and took her into my bed just to snuggle with her. Because by tomorrow she won't technically be an infant anymore. I'm running out of chances to smell baby breath and breathe in baby hair and listen to the shnuffly little snores.






When I put the biggest bear cub down for her nap one afternoon this week, it was a glorious September day, with the sun streaming in the windows of the bedroom and making our blue walls seem like the sky itself, lit up with golden light. And I was immediately taken back to the day I came home from the hospital with this littlest cub, and I took her into the bed and had a nap with her on my chest, breathing gently and making me feel more content than I have in years. Maybe that's because she's just a very chill baby. Maybe it's because I finally felt as if I "had" this newborn thing.

This birthday is a particularly hard one for me. This is the baby who would splay out across my chest as a newborn and simply soak up mommy time. I'm pretty sure she took a nap in her crib just about never, because I couldn't bear to put her down. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she didn't quit crying when I picked her up. She loved to snuggle; she loved to be worn in a carrier; she loved to be in her sleeper. She wasn't particular.

This is the baby who grins up at you and you're immediately completely frozen, admiring her laughing eyes and her dimpled grin. She loves to laugh. She loves to babble.

This is the baby who hears her daddy come home from work and speed-crawls down the hallway to sit at his feet and tug his pant leg until he picks her up. When he does, she rubs his goatee, lays her head down on his shoulder, and begins patting his back. And she doesn't move from there. She just wants to cuddle.

I am watching this little one emerge from infancy into toddlerhood and I am wondering what she will be like. For a long while I thought she would be soft-spoken and gentle. I actively worried about whether she would ever get any airtime in this house. Then she learned to eat solids and to demand them loudly from her high chair. Shortly after that and her subsequent crowning as Queen of the Nazgul, I stopped worrying.

Then I wondered if she would always be so patient and even-tempered. Cue the frenzied shrieking upon being deposited in her car seat, and her attempts to grab my arm and bite me as I fastened the buckles. Sic transit endless patience.

Would she always be so sweet to her siblings? And to other children? Well, she's smacked her brother in the face every day this week. Multiple times. And she's begun taking out other small children too. So she may have a touch of thug in her.

But at the same time, she can coo so gently you wish she'd never stop. And the hugs . . . oh, the hugs.

Happy birthday, Baby Girl. You are a joy and a treasure to your daddy and me, and to your big sister and big brother. You are the smiliest, sweetest, silliest, most loving little monkey and we are blessed that you are ours. Please don't grow up too fast.

Five years . . .

As I sit here and think about the significance of tomorrow, it hits me like a ton of bricks that tonight is just as momentous! Five years ago tonight, I was at the hospital, dreading every contraction and praying things would not get any worse. For the record, I had the easiest labor on earth. But it seemed bad at the time.

My baby will be five tomorrow. I never thought I'd be a parent who choked up at such a thought. But I am.

Those pictures of my precious baby four years ago . . . three years ago . . . two years ago . . .

Where did the time go?

Why did I spend so much of it worrying about stupid little things? Missing the big ones? Neglecting the cuddles and tickles and giggles?

It's never hit me quite as hard as it's hit me tonight.

Last night, Daddy took her to a play. Hamlet, to be exact. Now, to be fair, I reasonably expected I'd have at least another five years before Daddy was hauling my daughter off to Shakespearian tragedies. But he didn't have to drag her. She went so willingly, and understood so much. People gathered around her to admire this tiny little girl who was loving seeing all of the actors after the performance. The actors themselves got down on their knees all around her to talk with her. And she very sweetly thanked each one for his or her performance. She particularly liked the rather dashing young man who played Hamlet, and who very kindly signed her Great Classics Illustrated version of Hamlet, which her daddy had brought with him so she could follow along.

My baby is so big.

The other night, while Daddy was reading Hamlet, he asked her who would be king if Claudius weren't. "Old Hamlet," she replied. Daddy acknowledged her point but reminded her that he was dead, which was why Claudius was king. He asked the question again. "But Daddy," she protested, "Old Hamlet wouldn't BE dead if Claudius weren't around."

How did this happen?

As each child is coming along and going through the stages of their little lives, the stages are more painful, in a good "you're growing up and I'm proud of you but I'll miss my tiny baby" sort of way. I cried the other day when I put the tiniest baby's bouncy seat in the basement in favor of her Exersaucer. Perhaps I ought to blame hormones for something that silly, but I don't.

Five years ago tonight . . .

To think I had no idea whom I would meet. We didn't even know if she would be a he or a she! We certainly had no idea of the lung capacity she would have. Or the sheer stamina. We had no idea how difficult it would be to get her to stop shrieking.

Or how beautiful it would be when we did.

And now she is our big girl. Kindergarten in the fall. Dresses and dancing lessons and reading and all of the signs of a growing girl. All of those landmarks I couldn't wait for when I was pregnant, and when she was a fractious, shrieking infant. And though I don't miss the fractious times, I so desperately miss the tiny times.

I love you, my beautiful baby girl. I love you more than you could ever know, and I always will.