FOUR.

I have a four year old.

How did this happen?  Let me try to figure this out.

Four years ago, my water broke, I met some nice nurses, and at 8:34 PM I met Aliya for the first time.  I don’t remember all the details of those first few minutes, but I remember thinking she looked just like her dad and that my ass really hurt.  It was all of those cliche emotions like love and joy and warm fuzzies mixed in with fatigue and pain and extreme hunger.  And I just remember looking down at perfection and thinking, God, I hope I don’t mess this up.

Well, it’s no wonder that I have.  We all have, in one way or another, made mistakes.  Have you ever completely lost your marbles on a two-year old?  I regret those moments.  Toddlers can be real assholes sometimes, but I’ve got to believe it’s because they don’t know any better.  I used to be afraid of toddlers.  Now that I’ve survived this stage, I’m afraid of the teenage years.  But I guess the point is to remember that I will survive and to not live in fear.

Over these last four years, I’ve learned to roll with the punches.  I’ve learned which battles to fight, and when to surrender – like bedtime battles.  In fact, I’m lying in Aliya’s bed right now, listening to her fall asleep.  I’m sort of soaking in these last hours of my girl as a three-year-old.  Please excuse me now while I go cry into my pillow.

Before she fell asleep, she said, “You know what’s funny, Mommy?  When a bee tickles your butt.”  I don’t know about you, but I think it’s downright hilarious.  It’s like when Robert Downey Jr. Is drawing a cat in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and writes, “gato.”  Whoever thought of that must have been born with the comedic gene like my Aliya.  She’s a natural born comedian, among many other things.

These last four years have been a blink, but have also felt like forever in some ways. I can’t imagine my life without her in it.  She’s changed my world in the best way possible.

Cheers to four, baby.