I'm a Big Girl Now

As a teenager or young adult, every time you hear your parents or grandparents mutter, "They grow up way to fast," you roll your eyes and think, "Thank GOD for that!"

But then you have your own kids, and one day you're sitting at lunch at Red Robin your almost two year old daughter is giving you a huge hug between bites of chicken fingers and your husband is tearing up on the opposite side of the table. And you're sitting there thinking two things: I have the best family in the world, and my god, they grow up way too fast.

Maggie turns two next Sunday, and I find myself rather nostalgic. But now that she seems to be moving in a constant state of fast-forward I'm not only bombarded with memories of the cute (quiet) little bundle I brought home from the hospital, but also with a clairvoyant ability to see the future. She is almost done with diapers; soon she'll be buying her first thong (gross). Her hair is finally long enough to put in pigtails; soon she'll be dying it purple (over my dead body). She slept in her "big girl bed", aka toddler bed, for the first time last night; soon she'll be sleeping with the love of her life (because of course my child will wait until she's married to have sex).

I'm so proud of my little monkey, my little bean, my little Margarita. She slept peacefully all night in her toddler bed last night, woke up and insisted on wearing her minnie mouse panties, didn't argue with me when I told her she had to sit on the potty, actually peed in the potty, then let me put pigtails in her hair and pronounced herself "Pretty!" to daddy about forty times. So big. So amazing.