Born Yesterday

Today is Louisa's third birthday. It's funny, having a three-year-old. Literally, funny.

The other day, as I was saying goodnight to the big girls, we recalled a few hysterical things that Louisa had said. For instance, that day watching me typing on the computer, she asked me in her absurdly cute three-year-old voice, "When I grow up, will you teach me how to work?"; and at bedtime, she told me a story about her Wu-wu (favorite stuffed puppy) eating candy and chocolate in the playground, and then she cackled and said "that's so silly!" Bella, Ruby and I were laughing out loud discussing their sister's one-liners. Bella said, "the amazing thing is that she said all of those things today!"

Loulou's hilariousness means that we laugh whenever she talks, which is always (she's a chatterbox, and full of questions), and she doesn't like that at all. She often cries when we laugh at something funny that she said. She looks really offended and says, "No laughing! I don't like laughing," which of course cracks us up. 

Josh recently said, "You know she won't talk like that for much longer." 

"I know," I replied.

It's one of those things about watching kids grow up: marking time, becoming aware of the fact that nothing ever stands still. I can look at Louisa and imagine her at Bella's age. I couldn't do that with Bella, but I can do it now. I know how fast it will go. And part of me looks forward to what's coming. To having a beer with my daughters, seeing real movies with them, traveling with them. What seems like the distant future will arrive before I know it.

One of Louisa's signatures is that she has a simplified view of time. Everything that happened in the past happened "yesterday" and everything that will happen in the future will be "tomorrow". Hence, the moment at a family dinner when she announced, to the hilarity of all: "I was born . . . yesterday."

Louisa's view of time is simplified, but in some ways, more accurate than not. The yesterdays quickly meld together, and the tomorrows creep up fast. It feels like yesterday that I held a newborn in my arms, that I carried her everywhere in the Moby wrap, that she was nursing and physically adhered to me for much of the day. And it feels like tomorrow she'll be going to kindergarden and sleep-away camp and preparing for her bat mitzvah.

Funny, that.