5 years.

1,826 days.

43,824 hours.

2,629,440 minutes.

That’s the nearly the difference in time between these two pictures. In that endless (yet instant) space of time there have been countless tears, belly laughs, sick days, date nights, Emmy worthy tantrums, moments of pride, meltdowns, epic firsts and heart breaking lasts.

I’ve been blessed to be there for all of it. Every first, every milestone, every moment of fear as I’ve watched her leap into the unknowns of this life with reckless abandon and a measure of courage it’s taken me thirty years to reach. No challenge is too great, no mountain too high, no quest too impossible in the eyes of my little fearless creation.

But there are moments friend, so many moments like this, when the world is quiet, the questions have stopped pouring out of her young expansive mind for the day, she’s no more pressing the envelope of authority and reaching for what’s next in her unyielding search for all things new…and she gives in to the sweet surrender of sleep. Her wildly intelligent brain abdicates it’s insatiable need for more, and softly drifts off to rest a while.

It is then she becomes mama’s 7lb 4.9oz 19in long newborn again. Her face relaxes into the same sweet carefree infant I brought home wrapped in pink and a bow, and she is no more than a baby for a moment. We measured her last night for the first time in a while and she’s grown a whopping three inches since last year, standing at a long and lean 43 1/2in tall and 42lbs of solid muscle.

I’ve began noticing how much of a strain it is to carry her inside when she falls asleep in the truck now. Or how long she has become when I have to wrangle her arms and legs off the couch and into bed at night (baby giraffes come to mind if you need a visual). When she hugs me at drop off before school the top of her head is just about to my belly button, and suddenly the things she once needed mama to get down for her have become an easy reach on her tip toes.

How did this happen? No, WHEN did this happen?! I struggle to grasp the suddenness and finality of her rapidly passing childhood sometimes. As a single mother now in my thirties I am all too aware of the window quickly closing on me personally of what I would call “the baby years.” I’ve made my peace with the idea this may be it for me as far as children go.

Before you say “there’s plenty of time,” or “you could still settle down and have more,” hear me out. I love our life the way it is. At one point I was consumed with the idea of marriage and more babies to snuggle, it was all I wanted. But then life happened and we found ourselves in a routine, we found OUR routine (and it’s a REALLY good one).

Besides, I am not one to “settle down” just to settle. We are free as birds to come and go on all the adventures we please, at every moment we please. Not that I’m in opposition to marriage by any means, and I am not Jesus so there is no way to know what Hos plan for us may be…but if “all I ever am” is the mama of this beautiful sweet little girl, then I have been given more than I could ever ask.

It is in these quiet, still moments while I drink in her features, exactly the same as years ago but somehow completely different; it hits me. We are really doing this. I am really doing this y’all. I am the mother of a tiny person, she is an amazing little girl, and together we are living an amazing life. It’s not perfect- not even close! She has an attitude that would make Oprah look reserved. I have a temper that rivals Bobby Knight at half time when the Hoosiers are down by 12. We fight, argue and yell sometimes more than we should.

But at the end of the day we are it. Living replicas of the Gilmore Girls held together with hugs, hope and the Holy Ghost. These days are so long, but my goodness these years are short.

-KB

(written 11/17/2018)