My Baby...Growing Up...Not Ready...(and Tina Steinberg)

So those who have been following Kelle Hampton's blog will know that she's discussed this awesome jewellery designer previously...Tina Steinberg.

Now, the Guru doesn't know it yet - but this is what I'm getting for Christmas from him and the Toddler. I want nothing else. It will fill me with so much love and awesome-ness to wear something so amazingly special that there could be nothing else.

Apparently there is a company opening up here in Darwin that will do hand and foot print jewellery - but for some reason fingerprints speak to me more. And we got a TwinkleToes done for the Toddler when she was 9 days old. I still look at her little hand and feet sculptures and think back to the tiny baby I held in my arms...it seems so long ago and yet at the same time it feels like yesterday.

Did I mention the Toddler is being moved up to the toddler's room at day care? As in, no longer in the babies room. It's official - she's growing up and there's zilch I can do about it. As much as I am excited for her to be with the 'big kids' it's a sign that the end of her babyhood has arrived well and truly. And I'm not sure I'm ready for it.

The sad thing is I've become attached to the Toddler's carers as much as she has - and I know it sounds completely dumb but I know I'll cry the first day she has to go with the toddlers. I'll miss catching up with Miss Kimmy and Miss Sherre (or as the Toddler calls her, 'Ree') at the end of the day. The bonus is Miss Clancy is moving to the Toddler's room with her and they are having a bonding week this week so it's not such a shock to the system.

Why is it so hard to accept that your baby just isn't a baby anymore? And I know full well that the pendant necklace I want for Christmas has everything to do with freezing a part of the Toddler in time so she's never completely grown up (at least, not in my mind). I'll always have a piece of her babyhood close to my heart.

Does it ever get easier? Or do you always have that small stabbing pain each time you realise they are just a little bit bigger then they were? That lump in your throat when you realise she's growing out of her clothes and you curse the day she started to wear 00's.

Does it get easier the second, third, fourth time around? You know what to expect...or does it simply mean when the last is toilet trained you start stalking new mothers in shopping centres and beg, beg, beg to hold, cuddle and breathe in that fresh, baby smell that is now gone from your growing youngsters. I don't reccommend the stalking thing...but if they're a friend then I'm sure it would be fine.

But my main point is - whether we have another baby or not, I want the Toddler to remain the same. Sometimes when she's fallen asleep on my lap in the big cushy armchair in her room I just watch her sleep, I wonder what she's dreaming about and if everyone speaks her baby (toddler) speak in her dreams. I just try to memorise every little thing about her at that moment because I know in a few days it won't be exactly the same as it was and she seems to change every second...

So to freeze frame a small part of my little baby Peanut I will ask for a pendant with her fingerprint. Her little fingerprint that will be a reminder for me that she always was and will be...my baby...