Even harder than my 30th

We celebrated Gabs' 3 rd birthday this past weekend. It was a pretty momentous occasion. My baby is 3. She is potty trained, speaking in full sentences ( granted in a wee, tiny little chipmunk voice), capable of doing absolutely everything her big sister can do. She is amazing. In the last couple of months, she has outgrown that adorable little baby roundness and is now long and lean, like the world's tiniest supermodel.
I had this wonderful Fancy Nancy birthday party planned for her. She had to have it. She's wanted it ever since her sister had it last year for her 4th (ever the Bella parrot). As always, in our home, the girls wear costumes to their birthday party. I don't know how that tradition started but its been going on since Bella's 3rd birthday party. Both girls wore their Fancy Nancy outfits complete with boas, shoes, and crowns ( all princesses must have crowns). The house was decorated and people were arriving and all of the sudden I was hit with a horrible sadness, followed by fear,and what can only be described as damn near a panic attack as I ever want to get. I recognized this bizarre feeling. It was the same feeling that I had had the morning of my 30th birthday. The birthday that I was sure would not effect me because what was I to be afraid of. It was only 30! Who knows what happened in that brain of mine that day. All I know is I remember feeling like I was losing something big. Something enormous, and then I realized it wasn't what I had lost..it was what I had not yet accomplished that was bringing me down on my 30th and made me afraid to move past it. Maybe that's why I've had so many 30th birthdays?
Well, on Gabs' birthday party morning I felt the same way. In fact, I felt worse. This time it wasn't what I hadn't accomplished; it was what I had. Somehow, I had managed to have the privilege of giving birth to this little amazing person and each year that she gets older, I am losing her. Each year she gets older, it is the last time for something in my life.This past weekend marked the last weekend that I will ever have a 2 year old, Gabs.
This parenting gig is bitter sweet. Who would have ever thought that my baby turning 3 would be harder emotionally for me than when I , myself, turned 30 (the first time).