This is what she looks like right now:
That face!
I have seen better-looking faces lots of times. I think she looks - if I am being totally honest - a bit like a pasty monkey (a cute one, but still a monkey.). She's short and skinny and sickly and mouthy. But like Shakespeare's mistress,
... by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
In my earlier days, I was not a sappy person. I never cried during romantic movies, love songs made me roll my eyes and I generally presumed that L-U-V was actually spelled S-E-X.
And then I (not too surprisingly) had kids. And every saccharine love song in the world became suddenly, piercingly, about the love that had overwhelmed me, that had shuddered away my cynicism and my defences and turned my heart into a black velvet painting of a Precious Moments figurine holding a big-eyed puppy. And so:
She Looks So Beautiful (To Me)
She's The First, The Last, The Everything
She Lights Up My Life
Nothing Compares 2 Her
.... and so on. (and do not even think of playing the song "Little Green" by Joni Mitchell around me unless you want to see me Ugly Cry.) Songs that would have made me gag slightly, pre-kid, now make me go misty-eyed as I imagine it being the soundtrack for a slow-motion photo montage of baby pictures. Maybe I hit my head really hard when I had my first kid. Maybe something broken within me was fixed forever.
"You're so little for five!" an old lady said to her this morning.
"Little and PERFECT," The Baby said, calmly.
I don't think - really, I don't - that there is anything terribly wrong with her. I'm not looking forward to the testing (understatement), but if they find what they're looking for, it's most likely one of those outgrowable/easily fixable deals. And while it's frightening - and it IS frightening, because this is my fragile little child they are talking about and not some stranger - it is not what is dwelling in my mind all the time. Next week, when the testing starts? I will deal with it then. But for today, I woke up to her leaping into bed with me, nestling close and whispering "Happy birthday to me, Mama! The living room is a beautiful jungle!".
Five does not last forever. Five melts away quickly, turns into the rambunctiousness of six, this sudden turning into a Big Kid. I trust that anything broken can be fixed, that bad things will become nothing but funny stories, that she can grow up and still be my beautiful little child, my enchanted, enchanting girl.
this morning, getting her nails done
47 comments:
I agree, she is enchanting! And the thing that was most surprising when I had my first child is that you really do get to "fall in love" again. Oh, the infatuation!
Oh Beck!!! Pass the Kleenex's!!
Happy Birthday to your baby! I kind of want my last one to stay little, even though she is mouthy and tantrumy and farts on me. She loves me with such wreckless abandon and considers me her bestest friend which just makes me feel so lucky.
I am such a sap since I had kids. It's almost embarrassing.
It's almost as embarrassing as spelling embarrassing wrong, which I did, but then decided it looked wrong and looked it up. So I fixed it. And you would have been none the wiser if I hadn't said anything. I'm so honest.
Annndddd....I spelled reckless wrong.
Gah.
This is beautiful.
She's beautiful and perfect! Happy 5th birthday to The Baby, who is obviously not a baby anymore...although she'll always be YOUR baby :)
Little and perfect. What more could you ask for?
Happy birthday to your pretty little monkey!
What a lovely monkey. Happy birthday!
I'm guessing it was Option B (Maybe something broken within me was fixed forever.); however, I am thinking it often FEELS like you've been conked on the head.
Getting her nails done! She is small and perfect. Just perfect!
And I believe this may be the 3rd birthday I have helped her celebrate. We are all getting old too fast Baby. And you need a new moniker. The Girl is taken so how 'bout The Perfect? Miss Perfect! Miss Small and Perfect. I don't know, I'll keep thinking.
I cry at commercials now. It's really quite pathetic at times.
Loving her response to the Old Lady. :)
Hope you all have a wonderful day celebrating!
She is lovely and precious, and you are a lovely and precious mama.
Little and perfect, that's awesome.
Hope the testing goes well and meanwhile, I hope she has a wonderful birthday.
I looked in on Munchkin last night at around 10pm and burst into tears because she had carefully tucked her little stuffed pig into bed next to her, and they each had a doudou wrapped over the tops of their heads. I BAWLED. Because a stuffed pig had a cloth diaper on its head.
And that, in a nutshell, is me, post-kid. Sob.
Happy birthday, kiddo.
Happy Birthday to the little enchantress. I hope her day is perfect and that she can boss everyone (except maybe you) around.
I'm a sap who has no kids. If I have kids, will I become sappier? Or become an anti-sap?
The Baby has a pixie sort of a prettiness.
Why do they have to grow up? I want Corinne to freeze at 4.5... Just. Freeze.
happy Birthday to your not-quite-big-but-PeRfEct Girl.
Her come-back to that woman is all kinds of awesome. She sounds thoroughly precocious.
Before I had kids I rarely cried too. I still don't show tears that often but if something is going to make me cry it will have something to do with them.
I bet she thought it was pretty cool to have a manicure. I think I was 30 before I had a real one.
Happy Birthday to her!
Happy birthday, Baby! You're a lucky girl to get a rain forest in your living room.
My 10-year-old keeps tabs on my crying. Any time I feel the weepies coming on (in church, while watching a movie, any time my kids sing or perform in public) I've gotten so that I check to see if she's watching me, she always is. She's always asking me if I'm about to cry. It's silly that knowing she's watching makes me try to stifle my tears, but it's kind of embarrassing to be so scrutinized.
I remember being about my daughter's age and watching my mom cry while we were watching The Miracle Worker, and feeling a little baffled. But my crying instincts kicked in a little before I had kids--maybe around age 18 or 19, and since then have only intensified. It's embarrassing, but I wouldn't give up the love behind my easy tears.
Fellow former cynic her raising her hand. :)
She's beautiful and well worth crying over sappy love songs.
I hope her day is grand.
She is just way too beautiful and adorable to be a sickly monkey. ;) I think she is a DOLL! Seriously!
What a beautiful post for your beautiful birthday girl. :)
Oh Beck, I have always thought your Baby was an adorable child. Those eyes! And she's 5! I loved that age with all my kids but I remember hearing Ilsa wake up, run into her brother's room, and yell "Wake up Abel! We're 5 today!"
Oh my heart! I miss them at that age. Guess we're all saps.
Happy 5th Birthday to The Little, The Perfect, The Baby.
something that was broken was fixed forever
it seems true for you. may it be so for her. I pray that the testing provides the answers you need to get the help SHE needs, and she continues to be PERFECT with each passing year.
happy birthday, baby
OOohhh (says the former black-hearted who is now a complete emotional wreck)...Ohh Ooohhh.
She is delicious and bright and everything that should make us all smile.
Happy Birthday to the small and mighty one! You are perfect YOU.
What a lovely, lovely little girl. :)
I'm right there with you on the never before being mushy, weepy, etc., but now being a teary-eyed marshmallow. Do you know that lame Rusted Root song "Send Me on my Way"? With the flutes and the whole "bobe uh dee say, bobe uh dee ah" or whatever nonsense? Which isn't even sad and I think was created with the intention of being a fine accompaniment to pot smoking? That is the one that is often the soundtrack to my mental baby photo montage. And I cry like a hag. :P
happy birthday sweet thing.
She is so lovely! Happy birthday to her.
happy birthday sweet sweet girl!
and I soo know what you mean about the songs effecting us way more now that we are Moms!
Happy Birthday sweet girl! I love the shot of her getting her nails done, priceless.
I can't even comment on how I am post kids. I have three of em' too, enough said.
Oh Sweet Baby! Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday, Baby!
That happened to me with the love songs, too. Suddenly everything that used to be romantic was about my boys. Particularly Leigh Nash's "Ocean Sized Love" which makes me want to cry just thinking about it.
Little and Perfect, indeed!
She looks like a sweet but wise fairy. What a doll.
Happy birthday to your sweet little girl. And happy birthday to you too, Mom. Our kids' birthdays might mean even more to us than it does to them.
True happiness is a small girl in pink.
Happy, happy birthday to the Baby, who is most definitely NOT a baby anymore!
Happy Birthday to your littlest one!
My fingers crossed for you, too...we went through a whole round of scary testing that went on and one...nothing came of it. My little T. is still our little T.--not on the charts for weight or height at 6 years old, and still with funny little health quirks all her own.
Sorry I'm late in wishing the Baby happy birthday. I hope she has many happy, healthy years ahead.
Oh, Beck. I'm just catching up on your posts. Happy Birthday, Baby! Praying for good health for you.
Oh, Happy Birthday to your girlie & many many prayers for the best of all possible results with her testing!
Happy Birthday to the baby!
I'm sorry she has yet another possible health condition. I haven't decided if they get any easier to digest or not. I hope the tests go well and that you all stay strong as well.
Perfection personified.
happy belated birthday to her!
(and i can't see the pictures. wah.)
I love readding, and thanks for your artical. ........................................
how do u do?
Happy Birthday to her! I assume by now the testing is underway and I anxiously await an update.
Five seems so far away for us, but really it isn't....December. Wow.
For some reason I can't see the photos and that makes me sad. Must try again later.
So true, I am a total sap now, too.
Glad to hear this wasn't alarming, and sorry I missed the pictures of your sweet girly.
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