Big Kid

Halloween. We really made a comeback from last year's cute-yet-cliche pumpkin pajamas. For 2015, you wobbled around in a fuzzy pink bunny suit, swinging that Energizer drum left and right like you were born for the marching band and powered by a full battery pack of snack-size candy bars. For now you'll have to cling to the satisfaction of collection because consumption is still a few years out.

Yesterday we played dress-up with some new hand-me-downs from Parker, who is pretty equal in age but double-wide in size. It works out well for us. She's a buddah baby. You're a pixie doll. So you and I play dress-up when dad is out. I realize I'm taking advantage of your pint size and compliant demeanor but really, it'd be a shame not to. In a few short years you will have wardrobe full of your own preferences, probably a long list of flannels and Carharts. But for now, you are mine. So we play and mom snaps a hundred new pictures of you, many of them blurry now in the chase of trying to capture your sparkle before you're another second older.

On last night's living room runway you dawned a crochet cap and a silk Asian dress with a hem to your knee and side slits to your diaper. I laughed myself into a fit. You kept pulling the hat off your freshly fluffed hair and handing it back for me to put on you again. I can see different parts of your personality peak at me with new eyes. I've already started filling a treasure box of costumes to feed your imagination and nurture every drop of unabashed innocence bursting from the inevitably unraveling seams of your childhood.

As with any activity, the novelty only lasts so long before it's worn thin and your patience dissipates. I used all the dressing tricks up my sleeve, like putting my hands through the ends of your sleeves to guide your little arms through. Or the top-to-bottom peel strategy provided by the envelope shoulders on onsies (which I only learned to utilize six months ago). But in good time, the game was up.

You shuffled into the kitchen and stood at the sink. "Meh," you repeated in a soft cry. Then you opened 'your drawer' a messy mix of utensils and toys. Reaching in to your elbows, you pulled out a nipple with one hand and it's bottle with the other and held them up to me verbally affirming "meh," just to make sure there was no miscommunication.

And that, all that, was yesterday. You are a bottomless box of surprises these days.

Today we make breakfast in the soft gray light of a rainy Sunday. I swoop you from your banter on the floor and into the highchair clamped to our wooden kitchen table, the one your dad made that time. I buckle you for safety and give you a handful of melon bites before turning back to the stove. We both get to our business. A few minutes later as I conduct the breakfast bit at my station I hear you at yours, happily exerting a soft sound, or two, then three, each in it's own key. It's the first time you're singing a song of your own. I share this time and space with a little girl seranding her thoughts in an original melody. Just me and my little girl, a baby grown and nearly gone.

I also have to say, for the record, that your dance moves are really taking off thanks to regular dance parties on slow weekday afternoons and the wildcard bedtime routine. You have music in your veins and when you bang inanimate objects together you do it with rythym. And when you babble in public strangers approach me to compliment your singing voice because you're harmonizing with the music in the background. Yup, you are definitely mine.