Growing

I've watched over the last few months as the bigger of my little baby girls has grown and changed and turned into a not so little-little girl.  Hair that refused to grow for the first 18 months of her life has sprouted and stretched and is now consistently in her eyes if its down.  The back, with its beautiful ringlet curls, pulls down to the middle of her back if straightened out.  It makes her look so much more grown up then I'm personally okay with.

Her face looks less and less like a baby every day.  Her attitude screams teenager.  Sometimes I forget she's only 2, because she already seems so much older than that.

 I watched her one night this week take off running through a field full of other children.  Instead of just watching them, she joined in.  They taught her how to do a cartwheel, and I watched her try to maneuver her tiny arms and legs in the same way these bigger girls were.  She followed them around the rest of the evening, and they played with her.  Last month girls the same size ran around her as she tried to figure out how to include herself in their games.

A part of me wanted to follow her around, keep close to her.  But instead I watched her from a distance.  She would come running back to us to tell us what she had done, and with a smile take off again to find her new friends.

My beautiful big girl.