Day 303

O Evabird, somehow Day 300 slipped by without a 1000 pink balloons to celebrate. I guess that's how it happens: the days get more and more slippery; fall keeps coming, year after year. All week I watched yellow school buses and knee-socked girls, and I imagined how, not so long from now, you'll be running to catch your own bus.

Already you're teaching me. Just yesterday, you fell backwards down a few stairs, and I picked you up, so sure that you were hurt, so sure that you needed me, only to have you wail more. Finally, I put you back on the steps, and you stopped crying. You were crying, I realized, not because you were scared or in pain, but because the stairs had been taken from you.

You, my little love, are funnier and smarter and sweeter every day; every day you become even more of who you've always been. Aw, 303, the day we saw a flock of white balloons flying through the blue. It's hard for me to imagine that 304 could be any better.