A year ago, my baby's name was Larkspur. I carried her everywhere even when I was nine months pregnant. When I say carried, I mean in my arms. She was my baby, and my only girl. Then another baby girl arrived on the scene, and ten weeks behind her, two hurt little boys. Sometimes I think I have almost been in a state of shock this past year. I am not fond of change to say the least, and to say our life changed with the arrival of three high need children is an understatement. Beatrix will be a year old next week, and we will be celebrating one year with Gabe and Ezra in January. The year has flown by, and recently I realized that despite all my daily interaction with her, I have come to a place where I feel sort of disconnected from Larkspur. She has not escaped all of this without putting up her own fight. She has become my most challenging child in some ways. She must be a little bit angry that her own private mommy (the Seth and Keats are 3 and 6 years older than her so she really was the baby) became so monopolized almost overnight. It sort of rips my heart out to look at my little girl and think about how much she has grown and changed and how stretched I have been during these past months. Where did my baby girl go? Rather than sit around and let mommy guilt overtake me, I am working to regain the relationship we had back when Larkspur was my baby. I know that as children grow, relationships change and grow as well. I just need to feel like I am more a part of that than I have recently.
One of Larkspur's favorite activities is having her nails painted, despite the fact that her mommy does not ever paint her own. I think there are a lot of pink fingernails (or dingerbells as she used to call them) and red toenails in the near future.
