Little Girl

As of tomorrow morning, Laura will be eleven months old.

Holy Crap. When did that happen?

She is getting so big, I just don’t even have the words. She has gone from barely army crawling across the floor to moving around on all fours—quickly! she’s fast!!—to pulling up on furniture and scooting along the edges. I have every belief that she will be taking steps in weeks and walking by her birthday. She laughs maniacally at anything that catches her fancy—Big Brother (Bub Bub), music, silly faces made while changing her diaper. She can stand up at Harrison’s toy grid in the living room and reach the toys on the top shelf. I’ve seen her pulling the drawers out of the middle row and, when I stopped her and told her she was not to be digging around in there, she threw the most dramatic, most operatic hissy fit I had ever seen.

Oh my, but she’s a Drama Queen.

Oy, her birthday is right around the corner. She’s going to be one. Oy.

It’s so weird. With Harrison, whose birthday is in the summer, I never really think about when the day falls. It doesn’t matter if it’s a week day or a weekend because we’re off at that time and he and I can spend the day together without a problem. His party is always held on the weekend nearest his actual birthday in deference to the friends and family members who will be coming, but the actual day itself could be any time.

Laura was born during the school year and so I’ve been merrily floating along, keeping busy with grading, teaching, students, Harrison and his myriad of discipline problems when WHAM!!!, here’s her birthday to think about.

I hope I’m not blindsided like this every year. I mean, I’ve got her birthday dress finished, but it’s safely tucked away in her closet and I’ve not really thought about it since I finished it and got photos taken of her in it. While I was sewing it, I knew that it was meant for her birthday party, but that was such a symbolic thing in my mind that I didn’t really go beyond the title of it—The Birthday Dress—to think about what it meant.

God, where did this year go?