“Mommy, I am going to miss little Logan,” my daughter said to me about herself as I bathed her. Tears swelled in my eyes and I suddenly felt a heaviness in my chest. The approaching birthday for my daughter has left me sentimental and longing for her baby days.
I am grateful for another year. My goodness, a birthday is a gift. It is the opportunity for gratitude for the year we were given and the hope for what another will bring. Kind of like New Years minus the ball drop and noisy blow horns.
Although a ball dropped on me as the months turned to weeks, then days, then hours, and suddenly I sit here staring at a four year old before me.
The best way to describe this feeling is to imagine holding a flower and pulling a petal. Do you remember as a child grabbing a daisy and saying, “He loves me, he loves me not,” as each petal dropped to the ground? Except for me, each petal represents another year gone and another year of her growth.
I sound like I am losing something when I know I am gaining but the reality is I look back and think, “Where did the years go?” Or, “How did it happen so fast?”
When she hit me with the, “Mommy, I am going to miss little Logan,” I realized what I really have been emotional over and that is the fear that I let time slip away and took advantage of these years. These magical years that include innocent moments with an infant and toddler. “Was I present enough? Will I remember this when? Can I redo?”
I can’t redo, even though I wish I could. I can imagine this is the same agony that tugs at every Momma and Pappa as they watch their child graduate from kindergarten, head off to high school, pack up and move away for college, and get married. Every major milestone that brings us joy yet places a space between us and our little babies.
But for now I will gratefully say goodbye to three and wrap my arms around hello to four. I will pick her up and swirl her while I can. Tell magical stories of fairies in far lands. I will make cookies when she asks me too, and allow her to creep into my bed for snuggles.
“Mommy, I am going to miss little Logan,” she said. She may, but she will never miss her like her Momma will. I don’t tell her this. Instead, I smile, hold in every tear, I kiss her curly head, and make her promise that even when she is 50, she will always be my baby, for that she will be.
Happy 4th birthday sweet girl!
Words written and spoken from the heart……enjoy the wonders of youth and keep making memories.