Tuesday Top 10: I'll Always Remember

After the end of next week I will officially no longer be the mom of an infant. My babies are growing up. And I'm so glad; I'd have to run away from home if they were diaper-wearing, night-waking creatures forever. But at the same time *sniff*, I'm experiencing these precious moments for the last time as my little Claire masters each new milestone and it makes me realize how fast time really flies. So as we prepare to celebrate her 1st birthday, I am taking the time to acknowledge the precious and fleeting moments that I'll Always Remember.

1. Taking 5 minutes to hold you close and breathe you in and kiss your head in the moments after you were born before calling your daddy (all the way in Iraq) to tell him his baby was safe in my arms.

2.3. The way a warm bath would turn any bad day around for you.

4. How few bad days you've ever had. I love your perpetually content and joy-filled spirit.

5. The way you'd hold my bottom lip with two tiny fingers while I nursed you.

6. Your intensity! That look in your eye when you want something or need to get somewhere NOW. Not frustration or impatience, just enthusiasm and zeal.

7. The eager whispering you do when you've just woken from a nap; as if you've got a world of dreams to tell me about quickly and quietly before the noise of the world interrupts our few peaceful minutes together.

8.9. Laying on the sun-room carpet with you in a house on Northrup Street. You watched the wind-chime sing in the breeze and I watched you. Felt your soft tummy rise and fall under your onesie with my hand. Loved you more than ever, just like every day before and since that day.

10. The way you happily go to bed at night when your older sister does and then an hour later, without fail, call out to be brought back downstairs where you can pretend to be an only child for the rest of the evening. You are snuggling quite contentedly on daddy's lap at this very (late) moment.


Claire, you are my treasure. I love you in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, and underneath the moon. Happy birthday, sweet girl!