Still My Little Baby

MM is changing constantly.

Every day when I come home from work I’m told of a new “trick” she’s doing.

Monday it was making a fish face.

Tuesday she said ‘railroad’ and ‘lawn mower’.  {Two things she sees everyday so not as surprising as it seems.}

Wednesday she said, ‘onk onk onk’ when you asked her what Roxie {the Pug} sounds like.

She’s constantly on the go and has officially learned how to run.  Pops is teaching her how to hop in hopes that she’ll finally says his name.  As in, ‘Hop Pops!’

The little baby that I used to rock, and soothe, and bottle-feed is gone.  Now I have a bubbly, active little girl.  It makes me both thrilled and heartbroken.

Yesterday evening I picked her up from my parents’ church where she had eaten dinner {I just have to add what she ate because it amazes me how much she eats and how skinny she stays: a whole BBQ sandwich, 15 tater tots, 4 pieces of watermelon, and half a piece of German chocolate cake.  Woah!}  and was exhausted.

By the time we pulled out of the parking lot she was out.

When I got her out of the car she fell back asleep on my shoulder.

In fact, she was still asleep when I went into the house so I sat down on the couch with her.

And–get this–she napped for thirty minutes just laying on my chest.  Oh, be still my heart!–just like her newborn days.  So I did what anyone would do: I held my camera with my right hand and snapped pictures of her.

See, my mother has always said that if she knew the last time she held me was the last time she would ever hold me, she would have held me forever.

And I’m not sure when or if I’ll get to hold her again like this.  Maybe a hundred more times.  Maybe never.

So I took all these photos of her so that one day, when she’s all big and grown and my baby is gone, I can look back at them and remember when she was a bubbly little toddler who called me “Mom-Mom” and wanted to be in the kitchen under my feet every night while I cooked dinner.  Who loved to put Band-Aids on fake boos boos and gave hugs and kisses freely to the cat.  Who loved baths and her blue silkie blanket and her pink microwave.  Who was shy to strangers and had a laugh like an old man.  Who was serious, inquisitive, and a thinker.  Whose favorite animal was a cow and who loved to chase the geese around her great-grandmother’s yard on the Gator.  Who had so very many people that loved her and thought she was truly a gift from God.

I’ll look at them and cry–just like I did last night.  My beautiful baby.

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