In a few days' time, I'll be ever-so-carefully placing three candles in a (probably) pink birthday cake. I have a little daughter, my very youngest child, who is turning two and it's good karma to add a third candle. One to grow on, you know.
One to grow on.
I can't wait for her party, it's fun to see her dressed in ponytails and laced anklets from time to time, even as she digs with tomboyish-glee into the dirt and sand we have out back for the times in-between when there seems nothing else to do but bury Hot Wheels pick-up trucks with shiny red plastic garden tools. She's grown beautifully from the smiling baby-in-my-womb (really, I saw her smile as one of my countless nonstress-tests was performed, her cherubic little face nodding at me through the ultrasound monitor screen as though to say, "Don't worry, be happy" or "Hakuna matata" or some such joyful little catchphrase that made me instantly relax through the final weeks of my pregnancy) into a spunky, strong-willed cuddle-girl. When she was born, it was as though the sun rose again in my mind's eye -- no day had ever been quite that crystalline despite the four brothers born before her, and the silent, motionless sister born even before the brothers.
My little daughter, now nearly two, came bursting into the world for the very first time amid laughter and celebration. I was just so surprised and grateful she moved limbs, that she moved air, that eyelids opened curiously and warily to soak in the blurred images of her new surroundings. Surprised, even, that she really was a girl. After four delicious boys. After...after death was my initial introduction to motherhood, that hazy, grim morning my firstborn was gently placed in my arms, when there were no cheers, no smiles, no first breaths. Only tears, and goodbyes.
Soon...soon, my youngest child will be two. But there will forever be a link to the eldest sister that came first, then the brothers-four that followed. Because to be the youngest, you must have arrived ever-so-fashionably later than whomever came before. For my small girl, the one with the dancing denim-blue eyes and shimmering, golden brown hair, she has some mighty big shoes to fill. Shoes that keep our home busy, happy and humming with the sounds of giggling, hollering and 12 conversations going on at exactly the same time. Quiet, my home isn't. Proud, it most certainly is.
Somehow, I think this littlest one of mine will do just fine with the whole shoe-filling thing. She'll have two candles on that pink frosted cake to blow out, and one more softly flickering candle tucked into the deep, sweet icing to grow on, after all. One special candle that stays alight to brighten her path to tomorrow...a tomorrow that will surely bring brilliance and laughter.
One to grow on.
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