Maybe, it's because I don't want to think about it.

That could be the reason I am slow to post about J's birthday.
My baby girl is 7.
This awareness of her age strikes me often...as I'm dusting her bedroom, wiping over the place she wrote her name on her dresser when she was four....or as I'm folding her clothes, made for spindly little things...perhaps I feel it as I'm combing her hair, pulling tight the ponytail she can not get just right on her own...or as she reads me the sweet story she just wrote accurately conveying the way her parents met, a memory of ours she loves to hear...or as I'm tucking her into bed at night and she offers up a warm embrace, her silky smooth, fruity smelling hair tickling my nose.
After her next seven years, she'll be fourteen.
Then, it's only 4 more to 18.
Where has the time gone?
Why does life have to pass by in such a hurry?
How can I get her to hold off just a little longer?
To stay my baby girl?
My baby girl who loves to wear frilly dresses and ruby red shoes. The girl who still enjoys Curious George and Dragon Tales. The one that writes up invitations for impromptu fairytale balls held in our playroom. The girl who likes to sleep with her two year old brother and gently comforts him when he's sad. The one that plays with baby dolls, a mom to many. The girl that will take a huge blanket and pull her siblings across the wood floor, giving them a each ride over and over. The one with much-too-large teeth growing in the holes left by lost baby teeth, forming a smile that melts my heart. The one who runs around the house acting like Violet from The Incredibles. The one that wants my moments, my company, my help, my instruction. The one I will miss when her little girl ways are replaced with an all-too-grown-up version in just a few short years.

When you look at me Jayla, I just want to be all that you see.

You make me want to get this right. So right....for you, my little big girl.

I love you Jayla, in all your sevenness.