One month till Four

Dear Anna,
Today I watched a cute little girl a the airport with her mommy and I realized she must be younger than you. It's getting harder for me to judge ages of kids as you get older because even though I know you're tall enough to ride the big kid rides I still see you as a little thing.

Maybe the little girl was an early Three. I guess smaller than you. These days I can't believe the size of your shirts when I hold them up to fold them. For real?

You have one more month to be Three. Three was the best year by far but I still loved Two and that was a long time ago. Seemingly. But not really. Now at Four you're truly getting to be a big kid. I am excited and torn and finally feeling what most moms feel when their babies turn One: oh no my baby is growing up! So I'm a few years late. When you were a screaming baby I would tell myself that the screaming baby wouldn't last forever and that some day you'd be Three and Four, and how much fun would that be? And here we are and I was right. And now it's blowing past. And when you're Ten and I see little girls in the airport I will miss your Three. And this is the kind of thing I hear makes moms sad. This must be why moms want to have another baby. Er, No, this does not make ME want to have another baby! It makes me see that soon I will miss and want the little Anna even as I enjoy the big kid Anna.

I realized early on that most of us have known most of our friends and adult family not from when they were babies and up, but almost in the same semi-adult-to-adult state our whole lives. No one ever says how much they miss the old mom, dad, whatever maybe because there's no such drastic change in knowing and loving a person as there is in starting out from birth. The little person you love changes with stages and you're loving a changed person over and over. So when your baby is Ten, you miss Three because she was such a different person at Three. Just different. Just as you become attached, there's a change. Who else do you know in life who has gone through so much change right before your eyes?

We love you baby girl. Enjoy your last month of Three. We will.