If I could just slow it down, just a little

Jessica is huge, all long legs, big eyes and pretty hair. Suddenly, I’ve got a little tweener on my hands, she’s obsessed with making sure that she showers daily, goes thru three or four different hairstyles and outfits a day and has recently redone her room so that it looks “grown up.” She’s even singing Selena Gomez songs. When did she stop singing the Dora song? We packed up stuffed animals and baby dolls, keeping only one lone cradle for Rebecca Rubin (or as I think of her Webecca Wubin, because that’s what Sam calls her). She’s got little dustcatchers all over the place, is suddenly reading on her own, and is just so grown up so fast. I don’t know when it happened, but I still can’t stop seeing a baby when I look at her.

Sam is also suddenly much bigger. Literally, he was always a few inches shorter than his buddy Jordyn, but today I realized that they were the same height. He’s into taking pictures, and working out with Daddy. They’re going camping this weekend, just the boys, and it was only last year that he was too little to go. He’s off to school in a month, and I’m dreading it like you wouldn’t believe. Bad enough I had to send Jessie, but now I have to ship my tiny boy off to school? If he wasn’t so absolutely thrilled about it, I’d keep him home in a heartbeat.

And my Julie – my little tiny baby girl – she’s almost too big for the lay down part of my pram. I’ve got one of those old fashioned carriages, and it’s got two parts, the infant bed and then the bigger kid part with the seat. And she’s got another four or five inches before she’s too big to fit in the bed. She’s given up the pacifier completely and is chewing her fists and loving her baby doll and little teether toys. She’s cooing and loving her big brother and sister – I can set her down in her bouncy seat in Jessie’s room and she’s perfectly content to watch Jess flutter around the room singing. My baby is growing up.

All my babies are growing up – and I know this is the goal, I know that it’s inevitable, I even, when I’m logical, want this. But just now, just today – all I can think is that it’s too fast, it’s too much. I need more time, more time when Jessie’s problems are all solved by a hug and some attention, when Sam still thinks that Marc and I are infallable, and when Julie is still my teeny tiny baby.