Emily on her 4th birthday
Tonight I kissed my 9-year-old goodnight for the last time.
No, I'm not leaving her...or trading her in...and she's not moving out on her own (yet)...
Tomorrow is her birthday, and she'll be 10.
10.
*sigh*
Ten fingers. A whole decade. Two whole hands. Double digits.
It's an odd feeling really, knowing that 10 years ago today she was still inside me, waiting to make her appearance the next day -- which happened to be my birthday as well -- at 12:59 p.m.
An odd realization that she's about to enter a new age zone...one that will not change for another 90 years. She's going to be two numbers. A "1" and a "0."
I remember when she was turning "1."
She had eight teeth. She was just starting to wobble-walk. She was already "talking" (okay, more "baby-babbling"...but the girl has never been short on words). She loved to giggle and laugh and make faces and be tickled (hmm...not much has changed there, huh, Daddy?). And she was already deeply in love with books.
It seemed a long time until we'd be able to share tea and conversations about our "memories" and our favorite actors and our hopes and dreams. A long time until I'd be reading stories she'd written from her own imagination and sharing some from mine. A long time before watching her on stage, dancing in her beloved Nutcracker Suite.
Wow, it really does seem so long ago now.
Ten fingers.
A whole decade.
Two whole hands...
No comments:
Post a Comment