five year old.

Our baby girl turned five this week.

The other night David and I were watching home videos, laughing in delight and astonishment at our one-year-old Amelie toddling around, mostly hairless, with her big brown eyes and chubby fingers and toes, jabbering a mile-a-minute at the world around her.

And now today she’s tall and slim, all long brown legs and bashful smiles in the presence of strangers. She’s losing that baby-girl innocence, she’s starting to notice looks exchanged and laughter at her cuteness and it embarrasses her.

I watch her watching other girls, noticing their hair and clothes and shoes, and then sizing herself up, wondering where she fits. I ache inside, wanting to spare her years of comparing, of feeling not good enough. But I also know that it’s through this struggle she’ll learn exactly who God created her to be, that she’ll discover it’s the cacophony of the world that doesn’t measure up, and that she’ll find her rest in Him.

Our Amie girl is five now, but she still fits perfectly, curled up, in my lap. And when we nap on my bed our arms tangle together and her silky hair fans across my neck as she burrows into my shoulder. She tells me, “Mommy, even when I grow up I’ll still take naps with you.”

I listen in wonder at the questions she ask, at the conversations we’re beginning to have as she interacts with the world around her. Mostly I just want to always notice her, to work hard to get to know her, to never assume I have this living, breathing, complex creature all figured out just because I gave birth to her.

I ask God for grace to stretch into this adventure of mothering, rather than digging in my heels at the challenges. I ask Him for patience and wisdom and lots and lot of laughter.

Happy five years old, sweet Amie girl. I love being your mom.