Funny that I should decide to poke around this old thing today. I made this forever ago – back when life was calmer and before I knew the meaning of the word “manic” – and was just today somehow inspired to start a blog. Remembering that I once upon a time had fired up this blog and never used it, and having a giggle at the name…. what the heck, right?

So, here I am.

Getting back to the point, funny I should fire this up today, right? Today is my oldest daughter’s fourth birthday. FOUR! I’m in shock. Babies aren’t allowed to grow up, I thought. She is achingly beautiful and tall and thin and headstrong and stubborn and opinionated and sassy and did I mention beautiful? I love her so very much and I look forward to nothing more than snuggling against her warm body in bed once I’m done dicking around on the internets for the night.

Snuggling up in bed with her much like I was four years ago at this very moment… except then, she was still inside of me stomping my bladder and tormenting my ribs. And I slept blissfully, completely unaware that in the morning my life was going to change, very unexpectedly, forever and ever.

The day of her birth was a whirlwind… it was another normal morning for me (besides the fact that I was hugely pregnant with a giantbaby!, that is.) I hobbled my sciatica-plagued butt into the bathroom to take a shower, my water broke, I called the hospital in a very Lifetime-esque dramatic moment that I still laugh about to this day. We rushed to the hospital in a frenzy, me leaking copious amounts of amniotic fluid all over my mother’s Elantra and the several towels commissioned for the journey – and within an hour and a half, without fanfare or all of the beautiful tender touching moments greeting cards would have us think are involved in the joyous event of childbearing (it was more like wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, I was cut open, she was pulled out, I was sewn up and given Good Drugs, a jolly old time) I was holding a soft warm red angry-looking eight pound four ounce baby girl with a shock of dark hair, squinty blue eyes, and crooked toes (presumably from being squished in utero – don’t worry, her toes are normal now! No circus freaks here!) I don’t remember much; I remember dry-heaving over one of those pink kidney-shaped plastic basins; I remember my mother sitting next to me green to the gills over witnessing her daughter getting gutted like a fish; I remember one frozen frame of them whisking my baby over to a baby roaster and seeing a wet squirmy purple pissed-off looking squawking baby somewhere in the shuffle, and saying “Hi Juliet!” to her, even though I’m sure she had no idea what I was babbling about, either that or her ears were still full of all that fluid she was swimming in, I’m not sure. I remember my mom telling me that my sister said she had crooked toes, and that laughing hurt like hell (gutted like a fish, remember.) And I remember the moment she was brought to me in that tiny recovery room and placed in my arms by my own mother, and that’s the most glorious memory I have in my life, hands down… my new-mother arms loving every inch of that soft little baby who was all mine. Fumbling as I was, young and having no experience with a newborn… I never felt more right holding her. And hold her I did. She slept snuggled next to me until she was 14 months old, and migrated back into my bed again after our last move…. in fact, she’s a snuggly warm lump under my covers right now, waiting for me to come curl up next to her (and smell her hair and rub her back and drink every inch of her four-year-old-ness in… even though she won’t notice over the sound of her snotty winter cold snoring.)

Tonight I sit here and choke back my sadness, for every fantastic beautiful change my sweet girl has brought and continues to bring to my life. For the fact that my baby is very much Not A Baby Anymore, and is more than happy to remind me of that fact at every turn. At the fact that even though my life can seem like a horrendous mess at times, I still have this gorgeous child by my side, the baby who has been with me through the thick and thin of it all and who still loves me unconditionally and with all the adoration a four year old girl can muster for her Mommy. Is it strange to feel like she is my best friend in the world, these days?

And I laugh at the levity she brings, smiling at me while I cut the crust off of her turkey sandwich: “Mommy, you’re good at making food! And knitting. And dressing my dollies.”

That’s what it’s all about, kiddo. Happy birthday.