My Little Girl

I’m sorry if you find this post cliche, but it is what is on my heart at the moment.  Every cliche was once new and fresh; and 

for me these feelings are just that.

“My little girl is getting so big.”  This is my new anthem.  I seem to say it every few minutes.  I look at pictures from the day she was born, note on the boppy where her feet used to be, try to snap the onesie around the bigger size diapers.  She’s only two months old, but my little girl is getting so big.  I know I will say this every month, every year, for the rest of her life but I still can’t stop saying it.  I say it to my husband when he gets home from work, running down the list of happenings from my day: smiles, coos and outfits she can no longer wear.  I say it to my mom as I strap my girl into the car-seat.  I say it to my mother-in-law when I catch her up on the essentials: weight at the latest doctor’s visit, how long she is, that the clothes she sent are still a little big but will fit soon (tomorrow maybe).  I say it to the cashier, the lady in line who asks me what aisle I got her in, the bagger at the grocery store; they all coo and claim how small she looks - but my little girl is getting so big.

My eyes are tearing up as I write this.  I know it’s cliche, I know it’s been said before.  But I want to stop time.  I want to revel here, in this moment.  I don’t want to let this go, not yet.  I don’t want to put away the newborn clothes.  I don’t want to finger the smaller sizes at the store; they will only look smaller and smaller as she grows.  Soon it will be impossible to remember that she was ever that small, and she’s only two months old.

I want to take another picture.  Another picture of her sleeping; arms signaling a touchdown, mouth gently parted, eyelashes dark against her cheek.  I want to take another picture but I know it will end up being just one more in the avalanche of pictures of our first child.  Really it’s the moment I want to capture.  The precious innocents and peace of my daughter sleeping.  The gentle sounds of her breathing, the coziness of her blanket, the cheeks I just want to smother in kisses but I won’t because I feel a cold coming, and I don’t want to wake her.

Is there a moment capturing device?  Something I can peek into when I’ve forgotten that baby smell (the good one, not the diaper one), when she’s fourteen and off to high school, eighteen and off to college.  When I start saying things like “time goes so fast” and “I wish I could shrink her back” like all the well-meaning mothers are saying to me about their daughters.  When I forget these new mom feelings and it starts to be “old hat”.

There really isn’t a conclusion to this.  It will just keep happening at every milestone, every event (big and small).  That sounds so melancholy.  There is joy in these moments, it is not all sadness.  Each milestone is a huge achievement on her part.  She is growing, changing and it is wonderful to watch.