Maizie

Today my baby turns ten.

Let me repeat that, with emphasis...

TODAY my BABY turns TEN.

I find it almost impossible to believe that ten years have passed since I gave birth my youngest child.

Her first year of life was far more eventful than anyone's first year should be. Born slightly early and fighting an infection and prone to turning blue with no warning she started out in NICU and ended up hooked up to a monitor for the next six months. This slowed things like crawling and walking down for her a bit and just when she was about to catch on, we fell down the neighbor's steps together and she broke her hip on her first birthday.

I don't really know what we were thinking but, after seven and a half weeks in a cast that stretched from her chest to her toes on one side and her chest to her knee on the other, we really thought she'd be rarin' to go when that thing came off. Instead she couldn't even sit up. I was so worried.

A friend said to me, "You wait...when she figures out that there is nothing stopping her from moving, crawling, walking anymore you won't be able to catch up!"

And that's why I can't believe that it has been ten years. Because when she did figure that all out she started running and I've been lagging behind ever since.

And that's okay.

You go, sweetie. I'm right behind you.

Aging

"You really don't look old in that video, Mom," says Buo.

"Besides," chimes in Maizie, "old is the new young."

Well.