A Moment In Time

My youngest daughter will turn 1 very soon, in a couple of weeks in fact my son will stop telling everyone he meets that his little sister is zero. He will no doubt announce proudly to the world that she is one!

This morning she totters a couple of steps towards me and then drops into a lob-sided crawl zooming across the remaining distance. I lift her up and she snuggles into my arms. She is still only an armful, cosied in safe and sound. I breath in her baby smell which she still has. She giggles and smiles as I kiss her soft forehead on our way up the stairs. I pop her into her bed and pull her warm blanket in close around her face. She is warm and happy as she drifts off into her sweet slumber. No worries for now.

I know as I walk out and close the door that she is almost one year old and soon will not have the baby smell and will not be able to cuddle up in an armful. Soon she will be asking questions and running off to play. Not as soon but still soon she will take a backpack and run into a classroom excited to be at school. Still further away but still not that far away she will drive her beat up car back to school after her drivers test or her minivan full of sleeping children back home after a visit for Sunday dinner. She will always be my baby, my last little one. But it is only for this heartbeat in time that she is truly a baby and I will miss it when it is gone.