Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The dress

So today, I went to put on a little play dress that Amanda wore not but a few weeks ago and I swear it is three inches shorter.  I was shocked!  What!?!  This is the little girl we call "Mini".  She's my little and I wanted to sit down and cry.  Who does she think she is sprouting on me?
I stood back and looked at her from a distance.   I looked at a picture of her in the dress I took last month.  Below the knees.  Looked at her again.  Above the knees.  Huh? 
Here we were waiting for Brayden to sprout an inch or two for Disneyland and Amanda apparently snuck it out from under him.  I am so disgruntled.  She's my baby.  Most of her clothes have had to be at least two sizes behind and lasted for about 6 months, minimum. 
I am seriously taking issue with this. Most folks know I would have at least one more child if it were up to me, but Shawn is done and I respect him on this.  Some of his reasons are quite valid.  (Not the one about hating spit up or a few others that made me laugh...I will not throw him under the bus on those).  But he does have some reasons that are really quite, well, reasonable.  I understand and I am okay with it.  Until my little decided to go and get big.
She's gonna be 2 in a month and a half!  Oh dear.  I am totally turning into that mom, the one who wants to coddle her, treat her like a baby and spoil her.  Unfortunately, I do not really want to deal with the consequence of doing that to her, she already has enough attitude to rival any 13 year old.  I cannot imagine her attitude if we gave into her any more than we do!
And so...no more baby.  We are full on toddler and up here.  We do time outs.  We "use our words" to get what we want.  We try to put on our own shoes and we are just about ready to potty train (well, she is, I may just cling to the diapers as long as I can...sooooo not interested in going there yet).  We brush our own teeth and we fold our hands to pray.
Pray I do!  For the ability to capture this precious time in my memory.  To snuggle my kids and remember the feel of them at 1, at 3, at 16...because, someday, 16 is gonna seem so young to me.  It's hard to grasp, in the middle of the day and and day out parenting, when you are tying their shoe for the 15th time just waiting for the day they can do it themselves.  Then they do and you are stunned that they don't need you anymore. 
After the dress gets washed it's going in the donate pile.  I will be honest, I am deciding to blame this on the drier and avoiding taking her to the wall where we chart her growth.  But I am thankful, that the dress reminded me to snuggle her closer a few more times today, to sit on the floor and play tea and to let her bring over book after book, just so she could sit in my lap while I read to her.