Happy Birthday Genevieve!

You are two years old today and I can scarcely believe it, the time has flown by so quickly. About two years and 34 weeks ago, it was slowly dawning on me that you might be with me, a stowaway secreting yourself in small, warm, well-broken-in quarters until the time was right for you to show yourself. I wish I could say that I was immediately overjoyed at the thought of you, but see, I didn't know you yet. Only two weeks before I had ended the 50 straight months of nursing your brother then sister, uninterrupted by my pregnancy with her. For the first time in over four years, I didn't have a nursling or anyone in diapers. Your Daddy and I had wrestled with the idea of having another baby, and even though four children were what we had once imagined, we were tired and thought maybe three would be enough after all.


Thank you so much for knowing we were wrong. Thank you for staying with me and bringing your tiny blue self into the world, knot in the cord and all. I can tell you in all honesty that you have brought joy and beauty and searing love to me every single day of your life. You were only weeks old and so very tiny when you showed me how much you had to say, when I would prop you on the pillow in front of me and you would lock your eyes onto mine and kick and wave and make all manner of coos and grunts. Your story was already fascinating and it only grows more so with each passing day.


So now you are two. You look more and more like your big sister as you get older, but you are the only one of golden hair with highlights that no amount of money could buy. You are fiercely independent in some ways but you still love your mama. You love to swing and to be outside as much as possible. You love to go to the grocery store and run up and down the aisles and try to convince me to go "dif way!" You throw a mean tantrum and can turn from stingy to generous on a dime.


At night when you finally admit defeat and snuggle into my body to nurse and sleep, I smell your hair and rub your back and know how numbered those nights are now. You are my last baby, and hardly a baby at all anymore. I know this and the understanding is deeper than it was with your siblings and all the more bittersweet.