When Did She Go Blonde? { and other things I'm missing }

I was doing as I normally do today... sitting outside on the front porch sippin' my coffee while my sweet baby girl pushed her little walking toy up and down the sidewalk and I noticed something

my reddish-brunette is a blonde. 
Like a straight-up blonde.
{Just another she-looks-just-like-her-daddy trait }

But this begs the question...
When the heck did that happen? 

I thought back and even flipped back to photos over the last week and I swear she was a brunette yesterday and she is a blonde today. 

I also swear she was an infant in my arms yesterday and somehow learned to walk and talk and be a big girl today. 

I am realizing that these moments of 

"when the heck did she..."
&
"How the heck did she..."
&
"where the heck did she..."

are gonna be a large part of my questioning over the next couple years.... if not the next 50 years. 

Because this peanut is growing at a pace that I am all too uncomfortable with. 

My "infant" jumped into the pool yesterday unassisted. 
When the heck did she learn that? Wasn't it just the day before that she dipped her little toesies in for the first time?

My sweet girl ate her veggies with a fork tonight.
How the heck is she able to do that? I could have sworn it was no more than a month ago that I held her in my arms and nursed her. 

My little firecracker is now facing me in the car and I get to see her mouth-full-of-teeth smile whenever I turn around. 
First, where the heck did she get all of those teeth... where's that gummy grin!? And when in the heck did she get big enough to look like a big girl in that car seat... I swear not a few months ago we were strapping her floppy limbs into her infant carrier to bring her home from the hospital. 

This is my life. 
This is a mother's life, I suppose. 
It goes too fast. 
She is growing up too fast. 
I feel like I'm missing each change. 

I want to lay by her crib while she sleeps so I can watch the transformation of baby into toddler and then toddler into little girl. 

I just don't want to miss anything. 

Okay that's all I can take... getting that jaw pain that is a tell-tale sign of
ugly mom cry pending. 

I really just wanted to join in the chorus of other moms who are surely also thinking along with me that kids grow up too fast... and maybe they are saps like me and just want to cry about it. 

so. 

hashtag slowtheheckdown
mmmm kay!?