My baby turned five...

Today my baby turned five. A great accomplishment. By todays standard, it is a great accomplishment. My daughter has made it to age five without ever once having a major meltdown in a public place. She is not that child screaming and hitting her mother with a brick of cheese. She is not the child that cries and makes like a wet noodle. I have not had to football carry her out of any place. We have made it to five years, without one swear word leaving her mouth. We have made it to five years without spanking. My daughter has managed at age five, to use the toilette consistently, and she even wipes! She has almost learned to tie her shoes. She prints quite well for a lefty. She is not a bully, though I will admit she leads with great enthusiasm. She shares most of the time. Bedtime is not an issue. She can tell time, sort of (meaning, she knows at which times she may NOT get up, but frequently claims confusion well enought to mostly pull it off). She makes her own breakfast and pours her own milk. She holds hands across streets, but asks to do it alone sometimes. She is willing to try new foods, but almost always claims she hates it. She asks before she pets a strange dog. She uses her manners, most of the time. She is gentle, and kind. She helps her grandmother. She is mischevious enough to lie, but too honest not to tell on herself. She has more good days than bad. She REALLY marches to the beat of her own drum, and though usually tries hard to conform, she occasionally bursts out in nonstop chatter. She is sensitive, and caring (she makes little homes for bugs, names them and sleeps with the containers. We currently are in mourning for a nasty catterpillar named sparkle diamond and become proud frieds of a hairy one named diamond spikey). She expresses joy at some of the oddest times, which really lights up my life. Like today, on her fifth birthday, she looked out the window to see snow. Not the nice kind of snow. She big wet blobs. Not snow-snow. The kind of snow that is a warning. Like the notice you get before they reposess your car. "The snow-snow is gonna kick your ass". Then you get that feeling. You can feel hopeless dragging at you...you feel the pull to go inside and eat a lot of cake and then hybernate. Then Faith says "mommy it's snowing on my birthday!" and you say it with such joy. Like winning the lottery or something. I think she's the only kid that can make the crappiest stuff not crappy.

I can't help but reflect on the years past. I look around my home filled with you. Bits of your stuff draped over something, toys here and there, games crammed in the shelf, shoes on opposite sides of the closet. Bits of your supper on your tray, and juice box container stashed somewhere. A sticky spot on the floor. Fingerprints on the TV, tiny barbie pieces here and there, the plastic casing to your juicebox straw fluttering around my feet, hard to see in the dim light. Your art is on the fridge, your dishes on the counter. You are an explosion, like a little shooting star through my life. Everywhere you go, you explode in directions all round you, leaving bits of clutter and memories behind you. You've shot through my life with a light so bright, and a force so strong that my world swung of it's axis.

Everything is right with you in my life. I have no idea who I was and what I did for fun before you were born. You've impoved everything I am, just by breathing. I will never forget the way it felt to hold you when you were all new and floppy. When your breath felt like angel wings on my cheek. I will never forget what it felt like to watch you smile at me, how I hurt for you when you were cutting teeth, how I used to sneek into your room and climb in bed beside you when you were two...and I would have the best sleep. I will never forget how happy you were to get an xray, how you smiled, even though you had a broken bone. There are a million moments that I will never forget. You are pretty much everything to me.

I hope turning five is everything you dreamed it would be. I can't wait for another million things I'll never forget.

I love you my baby. For always, forever.