How is it that I can no longer say you are in your early 20’s?

I’ve been kidding you for the last few years, calling you a “thirty-something” because the life you lead is much more in line with that age group, but now that you’re 26, and officially in your late 20’s, it’s leaving me a little gobsmacked. Where did the time go? Weren’t you just here….

Or here…

Or here?

Weren’t you just chatting away on a phone that, while cordless, still required that you be inside our house?

Weren’t you just playing dress up, heading off to your first day of preschool, and hanging out in my arms?

Didn’t you just have a head full of curls?

For crying out loud, WEREN’T YOU JUST BORN???

I know you get this mother’s lament, now that you’re a mother, too. I see you look at those babies (who are no longer babies) with that mix of pride and love and heartbreak. The moments that you try so hard to grab and hold onto fall like grains of sand in a tightly closed fist. Try as you might, you can’t hold on to them.

But you do have memories, sweet and plentiful, which you call on often, right? Memories of sweet babies, willful but delicious toddlers, little girls who act like teenagers, teenagers who want to be adults but sometimes act like little girls, the breathtaking dawn of adulthood, and a grown woman with a family of her own.

I know I do.

Especially on days like today, when, just like that, you are 26.

Happy birthday baby girl! So proud of who you are. I love you…big as the sky!