You wrap your tiny, perfect little arms around my neck, like pincher’s, clinging softly, not desperate, but like a craving, scrambling higher and higher up my body, until your warm head fits snugly in the crook of my neck.
You hair is soft, freshly washed, your body retaining a little, just a little, of that baby softness. It’s outgrowing this weakness, but still, around the back, I can find it, and I draw lazy circles as we sit, you recent from the bath, still dripping in some places, and I perched in that spot you dropped the water, nose to your brow, drinking you in.
I want to freeze you intact in this place; your limbs, stretching from baby to child, your curious, 70% cocoa eyes, that mouth which bubbles and brims with thoughts, ideas, loud words, wants, quests. I want to trap your giggles in a margarine bucket, opening slightly at the edges when I’m 40, and you’re being, well, difficult, so I can remember today, so I can remember you smooth arm and chubby fingers stretching around my neck, so I can remember the joy which shoots like beams from your eyeballs as we tickle you.
“I want it! I want it!” you scream in any direction, any room in which your sister has the discourtesy to touch something. She capitulates in most cases, the path of least resistance, or at worst, the path that leaves ones eardrums intact.
You are the baby. I stare at you, straining to remember this age with Vivian, this almost 3 time, and I can’t. She was not you-she was so completely and utterly different. Mature somehow, older. You’ve been left to ripen longer, left to explore the outer reaches of toddlerhood without our impatience for what’s next to disturb you.
I watch you cling to your father as you do me, the same, but different. As girls are wont to cling to their daddies, you dangle yourself across his chest, nuzzling his neck, your eyes closed. Sweet, peaceful contentment, in the warmth of a father’s arms.
Stop growing my honey bear. I cannot stand the thought of losing the you who is here with us now.
Spin Me I Pulsate 
This is beautiful, Thor.
um, ok, i’m crying now.
this is the sweetest thing. ever.
ever.
Now I really, really feel bad that I yelled at Isaac this morning when he threw his pee-soaked diaper at my face. Because I suppose when I’m forty and he’s being “difficult” as you said, I will long for the days when the worst that happens to me is a urine-bomb right between the eyes at 6:45am.
This is beautiful. And she has gorgeous eyes.
Beautiful.
I love the line about catching giggles in a margarine bucket. 🙂
You capture your daughters natures so well- I feel you are describing my ‘almost 3 year old’ in ways I couldn’t express, just like your moment with Vivian…simply beautiful.
this is such a beautiful post… such a warm feeling after reading it.