this is seriously the best thing I've written this year.

(Don't let the title get your hopes up. It's also the only thing I've written this year.)

Okay. I've done the math on this about fourteen times so far, including using my fingers, because it JUST SEEMS WRONG - but this will be the fourth calendar year that Rowan has been alive. Right? Or am I wrong?! She's not even two and a half, but she's been alive in 2013, 2014, 2015, and now 2016. In fact, I hesitate even to say that out loud (Internet = out loud), because it honestly feels like someone's going to leave a comment pointing out how this is wrong and stupid because of some obvious error that I'm just overlooking. But it's right and true, as far as I can tell: four calendar years.

I haven't been able to get out from behind the camera lens on my phone recently; I'm obsessed with the latest pictures of this girl. She just looks so grown-up and person-y, doesn't she?

And then today, Facebook greeted me with this timehop memory:

A year ago today, I posted those comparison pictures of Rowan at three months and at fifteen months. And then I couldn't help myself - I had to take a new one today, too.

:: three months, January 2014 ::

:: fifteen months, January 2015 ::

:: two years, three months, January 2016 ::

I can't stop going back and forth among these three pictures. How did she turn into this child? Most of you know (from having been bombarded with the evidence for FIFTY-TWO WEEKS) that I took a picture of Rowan on our couch with her little bear (Mosby) every week for her first year, starting when she came home from the hospital. I miss our weekly ritual. In fact, today I'm missing her babyhood in general, having just endured the hell that is toddler dinnertime. She's diving into the deep end of food pickiness, and it's just. pushing. my. buttons. Particularly, it's her new habit of chewing up her food and then letting it trickle back out of her mouth while she stares at me. Deep breaths only get me so far. And tonight, after a long day that included realizing I'd forgotten my wallet after the grocery checkout had begun, I - well, it's weird. I didn't yell at Rowan when she started spitting out her food, and I didn't put her in time-out (which she's never had - not because I don't believe in them, but because it hasn't been necessary for us so far), but I was pissssssed. And she knew it, and she got upset, and I was not sorry that she was upset. Ugh, whatever. Thank goodness for partners who come home at just the right time and are willing to take a pass-off. Here. She's yours. I need some Facebook and chocolate, excuse me.

Anyway. It's been a long couple weeks of busy days and late bedtimes and funky routines, so I'll just blame my short temper on that and stare at more baby pictures for awhile.

...And, okay, maybe some big-kid pictures, too.

I hope your Mondays were a little kinder to all of you today, and that if they weren't, you have plenty of leftover holiday chocolate and a few more episodes of Making A Murderer left to tide you over.

::

{enjoying this content?

please consider donating to help keep this blog running!}