The Half Birthday

Today Siena turns 18 months old. Tomorrow she will be closer to her terrible twos than her days as an innocent infant. Given that I tear up when she eats all her vegetables and weep when she says a new word (slight exaggeration) you'd think this milestone would have me an emotional wreck, but I am uncharacteristically cool calm and collected about the whole thing. (Stay tuned for a follow up post when I ultimately lose it). No, I'm not playing John Legend's, Where Did My Baby Go on repeat. I took her to nursery and later we will go to the park, we'll make animal sounds, practice our colors, she'll say no when she doesn't like the snack I chose for her instead pointing to the banana she sees in my bag which is what she really wants. She has words, she has a will, she's a little girl. Does this nonchalance over a half birthday mean that I have accepted that time will not stand still? That I'm ok leaving her baby days behind? Probably not. 

But lately I've been thinking, although Siena's baby days are numbered that doesn't mean my days as a parent to a baby are.... This is not my way of announcing I'm "with child". It may, however, be a way of saying an announcement won't be far off. It turns out I'm not nonchalant about this milestone at all. I can't recapture the early days with my first and suddenly I find myself jonesing to experience them with a second. Of course the thought of having two kids scares the bejesus out of me and I'm not about to pull the trigger (get it?) without giving it A LOT more consideration. Yet, perhaps not so coincidentally, as Siena shifts from tiny to tot I feel a shift of my own. So, forgive me if you see me staring gaga at your newborn at Starbucks, at the park, in the library; it's just that, suddenly your babies are so much more adorably delicious. Coincidence? I think not. 

Siena, today. 18 months old.