tonight i just got up from putting my 2-year-old to bed.  my two-year-old.  who, in one minute from the time i'm typing it, will be exactly two years old.  unless you want to get picky about the moving and the date line & all that yadda, yadda.  in which case, she will be 2 in 13 hours exactly.  and i'd like to know where that time went?

two years ago, she arrived,



kicking and screaming.  and beautiful.  and while i crashed out in the labor & delivery room while awaiting a regular room, she and L journeyed off to the nursery to do all the newborn things.  and she screamed the while.  and finally returned to my arms, clean and sweet smelling, a little bitty bundle madder than hell that she had been forced from her sanctuary into that wide open, bright, cold place.  for the day and night after her birth, i didn't want to sleep.  i was captivated by the beauty of this wonderous being that i had waited 9 months to meet.  she charmed everyone who laid eyes on her.  and has been doing it ever since.

i've earned a permanent bend in my neck from the naptimes & bedtimes spent curled around her while awaiting sleep.  our house is covered with little toys and dresses and puzzles and baby dolls-things we said goodbye to years ago and it's as if we suddenly awoke to find they had crawled out of dusty corners to repopulate every inconvenient area where we may step in the darkness of the middle of the night.  the tub has been taken over with turtles and ducks and kitchen miscellany and the occasional stray bottle of bubbles.  she has her own cabinet with miniature dishes and silverware.  sippy cups have given way to straw cups by this point but if you dig far enough back in the cabinet, there will be a sippy lid amongst the scatter.

she grows and blossoms every day, egged on by her sissy & bubba & their antics.  spoiled rotten by her daddy who will give in to her heart's desire the moment she asks-even though most times it leaves me holding the bag when i have to tell her "no" the next time she wheedles.  she can talk your ear off and you'll understand most of it.  she refuses to try on clothes for the sake of trying them on.  she's fine in what she is wearing, thank you very much.  pimento cheese and crackers, hot gogs and pies, sunbutter on a rice cake-these are the things she would eat every day if we would allow it.  she'll acquiesce to a bath-but only if her daddy gives it to her.  and big girl panties aren't on the desired list at the moment.  we're hoping they will be soon.

she opens the refrigerator at will, no doors are safe in this house at this point.  we may have hit the magical age where she has discovered the joy of sleeping through the night-better late than never is how i figure.  she's a climber and a dancer and a comedian.  a singer and a reader and a mama to her babies.  she is amazing and i don't know why we didn't know that we weren't complete without her. 

today she has opened presents, and shared cookies with homeschool group, and colored herself with a flourescent pink marker, and watched the flintstone movie and marveled at the dinosaurs.  and added to the curve in my neck.  and 152000 other things that did and didn't drive us all mad.











and she blew out the candles on her birthday cake.  time moves too swiftly sometimes.  this is one of them.