Walk! Don't run!!!

I can't believe how quickly Bethany has turned into a toddler. She's 18 months and no longer a baby - although she'll always be my baby (even when she hates me saying that in front of her friends). The changes this past month have made this hyper sensitve Momma tear more often than necessary.

It's silly I know but one of the hardest parts of letting her grow up is having to face the reality that she won't be in sleepers forever. Not even for another 6 months. You can't get sleepers for a teenager, I've looked, and although you can get jammies with feet I highly doubt I'll be able to convince my 19 year old to wear them. Each time Beth emerges from her room wearing the big girl jammies daddy's put on her, I want to cry a little.

Beth has decided that walking is for "old people" (aka. Mommy, who's far to tired to run) and running is what the cool crowd does. Everywhere she goes it seems like she's running there. " Did someone say Milk? Ok wait for me, I don't want to miss it!" zoooooom she's gone. "Daddy's home? Sweet (which she actually is saying now haha) GET OUTTA MY WAY" she's off again, not paying attention to anything in her way, just caring that she get to Daddy faster than Mommy can. "Change my bum? Hmmm, ok - catch me if you can!" and there she goes, it's not her favorite thing but being able to run instead of walk makes it way better, well, that and it's one of the few times in the day that she might actually still get to see her soother.

The great thing with all this running is that by bedtime she is tired, really tired and usually goes to sleep quickly. The bad thing is that with all this running, and now climbing and experimenting come bumps, bruises, cuts, scrapes and tears that rip a mom's heart right out. Yesterday and today have been no exception. She was playing yesterday, stumbled, fell back and smoked herself in the head with the toy she was playing with and left an ugly purple bruise and almost puncture mark. She cried hard enough that she spewed chewed up cookie all over Mommy, and make almost no sound. When nothing comes out of their mouth but tears are flowing you know it's a bad one.

Then today, because her head didn't look bad enough she was in the kitchen at my folks place and I was busy making macaroni salad for tomorrow and she was being a stinker. We have a very firm rule about sitting down while she's drinking. It's too easy, running everywhere, to fall with a cup in your mouth and damage your teeth, split a lip or choke. It's been our rule from the start and recently she's decided to test it. And that's exactly what she was doing today, giving me the "Your hands are busy you can't make me!" toddler face and wasn't listening letting the cup hang out of her mouth. So Mommy, being Mommy took the cup and said "Fine, you don't listen you can't have it". This of course resulted in a little bit of Bethany 'tude , which means that she threw back her head to wail and like she's been doing lately threw her body back also. Now, usually she's standing on carpet so she maintains her balance and is just very wiggly in the moment. Today however, she was standing on hardwood in sock feet and fell, in a really bizarre way and landed on the seam between the kitchen and dinning room floor. It's about 1/4" high and left an aweful, HUGE bump! She didn't just cry, she sobbed, and sobbed and sobbed, and clung to me for dear life. It's so hard in those moments, because you're bad because they didn't listen, you mad because as many times as you've tried to stop the flaling she didn't and mostly you're heart broken because you never, ever want to see them hurting.

After some cuddles from Mommy, and some cuddles from Grammy, Bethy was almost back to her ol' self. She still pointed out her "ouch" through out the day, and man does it look bad but she's tough (Corey says it's 'cause her head is made out of Stone) and she's carried on.

How is it possible that I have to let her grow up when it means that she'll get hurt? Couldn't she stay tiny, immobile and safe in my arms forever? I know that God's got her safe in his arms and that his angels are watching her very close, but still, for my own selfish reasons couldn't she just be that tiny, soft, sweet smelling baby, who wore sleepers all the time forever? Please?