Infatuation

I am thoroughly infatuated - with my 3 1/2 year-old daughter.

I remember phases like this with Stuart, but it seems like it's been a while since I've gone through one of these heart swelling with love moments.

Julia has been quite sick this week - just a nasty cold, but it knocked her for a loop. She was clingy - but in an endearing way, like a tiny monkey clinging to me. She was high-maintenance, but in a way that could only make you smile (most of the time - Marc can tell you a different story about 3:15 this morning when she refused cough syrup).

Maybe it's because I've had to spend so much time just focusing on Julia this week, maybe it's the slowing down a bit to cope with the fever and cough - I don't know.

All I know is that I think I am the luckiest mother to have such a beautiful little girl. Sappy, I know.

This afternoon she skipped into ballet - "I can't be late for ballet!!" she announced. Such a change from me dragging her everywhere. Some days it's like swimming upstream to get the child to do anything, even things she wants to do. I helped her get her outdoor clothes off and she was gone. "Bye Jools!" I call and she turns around and blows me a huge kiss over her shoulder and grins.

She wants "Mama Time". Apparently no matter how much she's had this week, it's not enough.

I just put her to bed. I asked if she wanted to start doing yoga with me in the mornings. She said "maybe when I bigger, I have ballet lessons now". I told her it's not instead of ballet so she said "okay Mama".

I asked if she likes ballet - huge eyes, head emphatically nodding yes.

I ask if she wants to be a ballerina when she grows up - "I already a ballerina Mama".

I smile - but is that what you want to do when you grow up? "When I grow up Mama all my ballet going to come out and I will dance".

"Mama - when I grow up I going to do something... (yawn) GREAT... I going to be... (eyelids drooping) a.... MAMA".