I Hope I'm Not the Only One

Alana is turning four on Saturday. Yay for her! She's excited and keeps talking about eating vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. She's not a real culinary risk taker these days.

Me on the other hand, I'm depressed. I don't know what it is about my kids birthdays that I find so depressing. I hope I'm not the only one who feels like this. Is it that another year has passed in the blink of an eye? Maybe. Is it that with every year I get older too and inch my way toward the inevitable big 3-0. Yikes. I suppose that's part of it.

I think its mostly that with every year older Alana gets that chubby little baby disappears just a little bit. She can dress herself. Put on her own shoes. Brush her own wild mane of curly hair. Give me tons of unsolicited kisses and hugs. She now asks to go to bed, instead of having to be coaxed into it. She can get in and out of the car and buckle herself into her booster seat without my help. She washes her own hair, then Barbie's and Ariel's on top of that. She loves to watch Monster House at least 3 times a day and asks me everyday if someone is gonna buy her the new Tinkerbell movie for her birthday.

With every single day that passes, she needs me a little less. She still loves me, but she's learning that the world doesn't revolve around me, as awesome of a mommy as I may be. That's a sad day for every mom. She doesn't rely on me for every little thing. Everytime I hold her little hand it grows a little bit, so that someday it won't fit so securely in the palm of my hand, but instead match the size of my whole hand. Someday she won't even need to hold my hand to cross the street.

She's always saying crazy stuff that cracks me up. I can't believe it! I get to see Brinley! I can't believe it! I get to hold baby chicks! When I'm a woman, can I wear your earrings? Pink shorts match pink shirts. Terrance is my favorite fairy, cause he's a boy! Grayson is strong, he can pick me up! If you put water in my cereal instead of milk, that would be crazy!

I didn't plan on getting pregnant, but I loved her from the second I took the pregnancy test in the work bathroom, then even more when I heard her heart beat for the first time. She made me an official mommy and I'll always love her for it.

She is stubborn and headstrong and opinionated. That's how I know she's mine. She's also loving and beautiful and perfect. Who knows where that came from?

Just last week she was a baby.

Then she turned one.

Before I knew it she was a terrible two year old. But not so terrible.

Next day she was three.

And now she's gonna be four.

I hope I don't blink or before I know it she'll be graduating from high school.