Just Kills Me

Y'all. I do not know how this has happened. My baby girl just keeps growing and growing--doing exactly what she is supposed to do--but I cannot help but miss it. I never truly understood the term bittersweet until I became a mom.

Since her first day on this earth my baby had to be wrapped tight to sleep. The tightest swaddle you can imagine or she wouldn't calm down at all. Then last week she suddenly didn't need it anymore. She was just fine without it.

She has always loved her pacifier. Sucks on it morning, noon and night. But now she doesn't need it anymore. Still at night, still for naps or when things go wrong, but mostly she doesn't need it.

She can laugh. Not the baby giggle but a full chortling belly laugh that shakes her all over and jiggles those hound dog cheeks.

I love this age so much. She just wants to sit and laugh and hang out--she is very good company--I just want to put her in my pocket and keep her this way all the time. But at the moment I think this, I keep thinking I cannot wait until she is big enough to sit up on her own. To eat a cupcake. To say Mama. To give me kisses. I want to hit fast forward and rewind and PAUSE like her babyhood is one giant Tivo.

And yes, that is totally baby barf on her face in the above picture. There is just something about how she is doing the full on Gerber Tyra Banks beauty shot with puke on her that I love so much. She just kills me.