Lily is one

My hobbit turned one year old the other day.

It still isn't real.

When they say that they grow up too quickly,

they don't mention that one minute, you're bouncing a squalling newborn for six hours straight and the next, tears are dripping down your nose as you frost their first birthday cake. 

When I was pregnant, I couldn't wait for my little one to be born. I remember receiving twelve month sized clothing and thinking, "oh, it's going to be forever until she fits into this!" Now she is a whole year old. Those clothes are packed away in her closet and she's toddling around in eighteen month sized clothing. When she was a newborn, I couldn't wait for her to be bigger and stronger so that I could play games with her. Now, we play games and laugh, but she's more interested in exploring the world than in cuddling with her mama.

I remember rocking her to sleep and then hurrying to lay her down in her crib just so I could have an hour to myself before she woke up again. Now, she won't let me rock her. Instead, she would rather "read it out", our term for letting her look at her books until she falls asleep on top of them. 

I feel like I took a lot of her beautiful babyhood for granted and now I am kicking myself. I guess it's just one of those things that you learn as you go, right?