You? You're like a butterfly

Someone I can hold only so gently. I can feel your wings flutter against my hands as you strengthen them - preparing to fly. This moment is so fleeting, magical, timeless yet passes much too swiftly. You are not mine to keep - simply mine to nurture. It is my privilege to keep you safe as you transform into this beautiful butterfly, this flitting creature of beauty and grace.  

  This picture of Jellybean was taken a mere 2 1/2 weeks ago.  She still has a little girl look to her.

And somewhere, somehow in these almost 3 weeks there has been a transformation, a metamorphisis.  There is less little girl and more young lady.  There is grace and poise and compassion and wisdom and softness and elegance, and I look at her and I hold her in my arms and I cry.  I did just that tonight.  I held her in my arms and she snuggled in to me as close as we could get, and hot tears began to stream from my eyes. 

Partly tears of sorrow, for if I could I would hold onto her so tightly that she could no longer grow older, that she would stay my little girl forever but, as with a butterfly, I can not do that.  Her wings were meant to carry her to places that they could become touched by the magic of her as well.  Mostly my tears were the happy tears of a mom who knows her little girl is growing up - becoming what she is to become, the tears of a mom who looks into the eyes of a gentle, loving young lady but past those eyes, she can see the small, delicate baby that smelled so fresh and new and like hope almost 10 years ago.

And when she was a child she played with a child's toys but now she has put aside her childish ways.  She is painting her nails, doing her hair; she is no longer throwing on clothes but puts together an outfit.  She as replaced sparkling doll dresses for glitter in her own hair and crayons and a coloring book for her notebook and writing  

She is showing us what it truly means to love your neighbor with no exceptions and no expectations.  She wrote a note to the ladies who pierced her ears that made them cry. Her dad and I are learning a lot from her - even as we teach her, she teaches us through her kindness, her quite gentleness, her love...

It is my honor to hold you, sweet Jellybean, in my hands as you strengthen your wings, as you learn to use them, as they begin to carry you to the places you will go, to the lives you will touch.  The first of those lives, and the one that has been touched the most, is mine.

I would love to be able to capture time in a bottle just so I can hold on to these moments.  They are just going by so quickly.  Really, I blinked and it seems like I missed a lot of your life when really it was three weeks time and I didn't miss it at all.

I see you and lyrics from a Roberta Flak song flood my head.

"The first time ever I saw your face

I thought the sun rose in your eyes

And the moon and stars were the gifts you gave "

How about you, ladies?  Does it seem like your children change suddenly?  Like one moment they have transformed before your very eyes, aging what seems like years in mere moments?