Frosting

I glanced into the kitchen the other day and saw Abby reaching up to the kitchen counter. Since I recently hid the step stool from her brother (who uses the stool to reach the butter and then eat it), I wondered what she was standing on to reach the counter.

When I got to the kitchen, I was shocked to see that she wasn’t standing on anything, except her feet, which were firmly rooted to the floor. She wasn’t even tippy-toeing. She was just standing there, lifting the top off of the cake plate, licking frosting off of her finger.

The moment made me feel like a visiting relative rather than a day-in-day-out parent. The “Oh my how you’ve grown” and “I remember you when you were this high…” thoughts danced through my head while simultaneously piercing my heart. I looked at my baby girl and surprisingly found a Kindergartener. She’s no longer a baby—she’s a stretched out, dish-clearing, about-to-tooth-loosing, go-into-school-by-herselfing, “whatever”-momming, I’m-going-to-read-a-chapter-by-myselfing big, big girl.

Wasn’t she just pushing the step stool through the kitchen to reach the goodies?

At times, I look at Abby and struggle to remember her as a baby, tiny and sleeping in my arms. At others, I vacillate between who she was, who she is and who she will become, all her memories twisting a fabulous tale. At others, I’m struck by the oldness of her. Luckily the present slaps me around every once in a while and brings me to now. So I can live in the present with my daughter. And so I can get to the frosting before she eats it all.