Queen of My Heart

My baby turned 5 on Saturday. Five years old? How did that happen?

It's a cliche that time flies quicker when you have children, but it's a cliche for a good reason. Five years old means that she has officially left the land of babyhood and toddlerhood and even preschooler-hood for good. In five months she'll be starting kindergarten and beginning her long odyssey of public school life. No wonder my heart is filled with such dread. I quake with my dark imaginings of what peer pressure and standardized testing pressure and fit-in-the-box pressure will do this brilliant, funny, fearless, imaginative, confident beauty.

But I guess I'll save that post and more of those musing for later in the year. For now...I present to you my girl, my wonder, my first born, my only daughter. "Mommy, you're the queen of my heart," she told me frequently this past year.

I once had the thought that Lily was born in Technicolor. How I love to look at old movies and musicals from the '50s, if only to admire the lipstick reds and intense, vibrant hues of the costumes and sets. "Why can't real life be in Technicolor?" I've thought more than once. At yet when I look at this girl, its seems that she is indeed made of all those larger and truer-than-life colors. She seems to pop against the background of our everyday lives.
How I love to rest my eyes upon this child, and marvel that she is my own. Happy Birthday, sweet Lily. I know that you spent a lot of time when you were four telling us about how you're tired of being a human, and that you're ready right now to turn into a mermaid OR a pixie, but you should know that we're quite pleased with the form you've taken in this life's incarnation -- magical little girl -- and hope you stay this way for a good while longer.

Love,
Your Mommy