Bye-bye, Baby! Baby bye-bye!

My baby is all growed up!

Eeek - she's four! Where did the last 1460 days go?

See now how hard it is for me to leave the whole birthday blogging thing alone? Little Air-Bear celebrates her birthday one week after mine. (I find this rather convenient as I can leave the balloons up from my birthday and just shove over the Happy 30th cards for the Happy 4th ones! I don't go so far as to save cake, though...)

Fortunately for us, the next immediate family member's birthday is at the end of September, so we can take a break from the festivities for a little while.

But 4!

Four is the end of an era - especially when it's your last child and there really don't mean to be any more. Four is like the full stop on the Infancy sentence. Like this: INFANCY. or INFANCY four 

It means that the babies are departed. They have officially left the building. Enter the age of the terrorists (with whom I refuse to negotiate). And it's funny how that happens, isn't it? I mean the whole switchover from baby to big kid. It's so sudden. Abrupt, almost. One moment she's all cuddles and let-me-do-stuff-for-her, and the next it's all, "Mo-om!" (two syllables), "I'm not a baby, you know!"

Still, they will always be my babies, these girls of mine. I've warned them about that already. They know that one day when I'm old and incontinent and their own offspring are picking the azaeleas from my old-age home flower pots, they will still be my babies. And the funny thing is, that they're ok with that. At first it's all, "Arrrgh, Mom," but the resistance dies down and the next thing I know these beautiful mini people are obliging and approachable and completely pick-up-and-rock-them-to-sleep-able.

Lucky me.