Getting Older

How does this keep happening?

I pull the Bean's favorite shirt from his drawer, tug it on over his head, and - BAM! The shirt that fit like a glove last week is now too small. Not just a little tight around the edges, either. I'm talking now-that-we've-forced-it-on-we-may-never-get-you-out-of-this-shirt-again-hope-you-like-red-trucks-on-your-wedding-day unwearably small.

They're growing.

Nacky is nearly too tall to nap in the pack-and-play; a problem I'm not mentally equipped to deal with right now. Lets not even talk about how fast her vocabulary is growing, and how she told me the other night: "No, no WANT come, sit rocking chair Grandma STORY read! I will NEVER!"

(The last she learned from The Bean - one of his many gifts to his little sister that she keeps at the ready in her sass-arsenal.)

They're growing.

These past few weeks as their birthday ticks closer, my heart keeps finding all these little ways to explode. Moments in awe of how beautiful my children are. moments of immense pride in what wonderful people they are becoming, and how I genuinely LIKE them. Moments of aching sorrow that this is all happening so unbelievably fast. And the devastation that I am about to lose my sweet little 3 year old boy to an older and wiser 4 year old; and my familiar and cuddly 1 year old daughter to some mysterious 2 year old creature.

Even Hank bewilders me as I am certain he is a 28 year old man tucked into an 8 month old body - but his birthday isn't until March, and so the fevered whirlwind of emotion for his sake is 4 months out.

My Monkeyfish and the Daphernacle are turning a year older on Monday.

Four days.

I only have four days left with my three-year old boy and my one-year-old girl.

Maybe it's the fact that their birthdays are on the same day that causes it to feel so concentrated - but I can't help but marvel at how permanent the passing of time is.

And I marvel, too, at the fact that on Monday, Daphne will be the exact age Wyatt was when we brought his little sister home. That foreign little thing that he didn't understand and wasn't sure he liked very much - and that is now his very best friend.

I am excited. I am so excited! Their aunts and uncles and cousins and etc. are coming over Sunday night to share ice cream and cake, and William is taking a half-day on Monday so we can take them out to celebrate their big day!

I am excited for them to open their gifts from us! Because I know they will love them. We got Wy the BIG one this year. I can't tell you what it is, yet, but it may or may not rhyme with RIKE.

I love Birthdays, especially the birthdays of my favorite people. But this week, I can't help but also feel a meloncholy nostalgia for these children that I hold in my arms each night, that give me spontaneous hugs and announce unprovoked, 'Mommy, I love you!' - knowing that one day much too soon, Wyatt won't think I'm the coolest person in the world, anymore. Daphne will prefer to play with her friends than with me. And when they have homes and families of their own, it will become much, much harder to get my daily dose of hugs.