Annual Ladie's Tea

At big grandma's church. We've been 7 times.
As I sat there with Jayla, in the exact same place as all the years prior, I could envision this girl back when she was a little tiny thing in her pretty frilly pink dresses and white sandals as she played around the room with the other little tiny girls in frilly pink dresses, ribbons in their hair. I remembered the teas when I was expecting our next baby, wearing my best maternity duds, feeling large and uncomfortable, not appreciating that brief season of sweet anticipation, my glowing skin and full hair, holding my baby inside. If I had just realized how quickly it would pass me by leaving me gob smacked, looking backward wondering what happened? Where has it gone?
This year, my daughter sat still. The entire time. No hopping around on the floor. She didn't nudge and poke big grandma a thousand times, getting her attention to tell her some silly thing. She drank hot tea with me, and coffee too. Cut her own grilled chicken, (don't you want some help honey? No mom, I can do it. Okay then) and took trips alone to the buffet table to get more triangle shaped finger sandwiches. She is different now. It keeps happening before I am ready. When I finally get used to a new reality, when a fresh and unexpected way of being for each of them begins as a surprise, then finally becomes normal, they grow out of it yet again and move into another surprising new. It has only been 7 teas. How could so much change occur in just 7 small teas? I love her exactly the way she is now, but I already know. Next year's tea will be different. It will remind me of that constant bittersweet transition as she sits beside me, beautiful, ever changing much too quickly, right before my teary eyes.