you're so bigger

Julia is almost one.
I am kind of sick, thinking about it. Even as I say things like, and When the girls are older, we can take the train downtown for the day and Won't it be fun when she and Lucy really play together? And When I'm done nursing so much, I can wear a dress again.

But. Really, I just love her little funny body. The little no-neck. The little rolls, and pudges, and the stubbiness. Her smacking her lips when it's time to nurse. The baby talk, and the headlong crawling, body wagging from side to side.

I know it doesn't happen this way, but I have this vision of her turning one, standing up, getting and insisting she doesn't need to hold my hand when crossing the street.

Perhaps my panic is due to the fact that not long after Lucy started walking, she decided she didn't need cuddles. No voluntary hugs or kisses for months. She is plenty snuggly now, but she's leggy and rangy, and quite her own person, thank you very much. It was kind of abrupt.

My old roommate kept her double mattress when she got married for, as she put it, "enforced cuddling." Maybe I'll keep her in the Ergo until she's three, on the same principle. She'll learn to walk eventually, right?

Oh, Julia. Like Dyami's mom, used to say to Lucy when she was just a wee thing: You're so bigger.