Apron Strings

Just finished cleaning and now the house is clean as a whistle. While vacuuming I sliced my index finger open. It's bandaged to the hilt and now I'm having to make 5.5 corrections per sentence. If I didn't clean up the typos, my sentences would look like this: If I didn'ty clean up the tpos, my sentencrces would look like things.
Tomorrow is Bea's cake and ice cream party with the friend of her choice from school. So Dilon O'Brien and company will be here at noon for a hot dog and macaroni and cheese lunch with Spongebob cake for dessert. The cake is a bit of a daunting task, but I think I can work it out.
Bea will be 6 on Sunday. 6. For those of you who aren't parents it can be hard to grasp the gravity of a child turning 6. Seems like just another birthday maybe. But speaking on behalf of mothers everywhere (especially mothers of daughters) I can confidently say that 6 may as well be 16. Gone is the baby fat from her cheeks, gone are most of the speech impediments. She is a confident, outgoing, sassy child. She no longer wears clothing that has a 'T' in the size. She has her own opinions and flaunts them openly and often. I have no fear of her future and I have no sadness in her advancing age. The only baggage I'm bringing into this birthday is the nostalgia for her baby days. They were days that, while I was living them, could at times be sheer hell. But they were also days that had more sweetness and intimacy than I have ever known in my life. I thank God for the closeness that I had with her then and the closeness I share with her now. I pray to God that it will stay this way for the rest of my life even as I know that nature dictates that she will tear herself from me one day, taking most of my heart with her. I pray for the strength to stay with her, waiting for the day she'll return to me wholly. I pray for the wisdom to know, in that moment, that she doesn't hate me, she's just spreading her wings. I pray now to fully take in this time with her, where I am her world, and her only desire is to grow up to be just like me. I am so thankful for her and so grateful that I have this chance to be a mother to such an amazing child.