What happened to my baby?
You know the one I’m talking about. She used to be dinky with a giant head and was known to topple over onto her face into a stack of pillows, if not propped up just so.
Now she knows the difference between her Crocs and all her other shoes, stuffs fist-fulls of cherry tomatoes into her mouth, and walks around barking out commands like “Mama, sit!” and “Milk, glass!”
I was paying attention the whole time, I swear. But sometimes it feels like it all happened while I glanced away, just for a second.
I notice it at night, mostly. While I’m feeding her that one remaining bottle of milk – the one after the bath, before the bed and during the book – and cradling her in my arms as our end-of-the-day ritual. She used to tuck neatly into my arms. Now her head sits on one armrest and her feet dangle like wet spaghetti over the other. She looks so tall to me in the dim glow of the nightlight and it makes me a little sad.
But during the action-packed-baby-pool-trips-to-Target-grapes-in-a-baggie days, I forget all that and just crack up while she smears mango smoothies into her hair at breakfast. And I’m thankful for what fun it is just to have her around.
