Last Days of Threedom

We've arrived once again, to this place. A place of undeniable recognition that we parents must face...our kid is growing up. It just so happens this year, I get to celebrate two wonderful days at the same time. Mother's Day lands on May 9th this year, and marks the fourth anniversary of my becoming a mother.

Well, actually that happened about ten months earlier, because in reality, we moms all know that it happens the minute we find out there is a baby inside the womb. Suddenly we are aware of everything we eat and drink, we daydream about whether it's a boy or a girl, what they might look like, and we pray fervently that they will have five fingers and five toes on each hand and foot. We worry that we won't love them enough, that we will make horrible mistakes. Are we exercising too much? Not enough? How does this momma thing work anyway? All we know is that we have a little person growing inside our bellies. And we love em. Oh man, do we love em!

But nothing can prepare you, no matter how much advice people give you, for what comes after that squishy little bundle arrives and you look straight into their precious little eyes. Nothing can prepare you for what happens after you take that baby home. No, I'm not talking about the poop. Or the diapers. Or the sleepless nights, or even the breastfeeding. I'm talking about the heartache, mixed with pride, mixed with elated joy, all combined with a pinch of madness to make up this drunken stupor of emotions that is parenthood!

And then you find yourself arriving to the place we are right now. A birthday arrives. And then another. And another. First, your baby is days old, then months, then suddenly you are speaking in years. It took forever to get used to saying that I had a three-year-old. Now I find both my mouth and my mind trying to grasp this new concept of four. Four. FOUR!!! She's turning four?

We look back at the excitement we felt when Phoebe took her first steps, said her first words, put a sentence together, told us she loved us. And now? Now she is learning basic addition and subtraction, reading over a hundred words and some sentences, insisting she "help" wipe her own bottom (oh Lord, I knew this day would come), and painting her own toe nails! Now she is explaining the definitions of her two current favorite words-exquisite and metamorphosis. Every day I am wondering what on earth nine is going to look like....or eleven! Oh boy.

My baby is turning four!

But not today. Today, she is three. If only for a few more hours...I'm holding on tight to threedom!