Happy 4th Birthday I.!!

Today was such a bittersweet day on a couple of fronts. It's always hard for me when I.'s birthday comes around though not nearly as hard as that first one when she up and decided to wean me cold turkey the week of her birthday. I concentrate on how happy she is to have a birthday and how proud that she is a year older, but with her being my only one, I realize that this time will never come again and it makes me sad once she's gone to bed. However, today she got to sit in the birthday chair next to her teacher at school, blow out 4 candles, have happy birthday sung to her by her classmates, and finally join the ranks of the 4 year olds. She was so excited and I was glad I could document it all on the video camera. Before school, I. and I made pumpkin cupcakes for her park playdate with her friends tomorrow morning and she's excited about that.

The second front was that we had to take V. to the airport this morning. Thankfully, these separations don't have quite the same emotional impact as they did at the beginning which may sound bad, but after mulling it over, I think it's a combination of her getting older, her having a life outside of the family via preschool, and it just becoming the new normal. She instantly reconnects with V. as soon as he comes home so I'm not really concerned with this change, more relieved that I don't have to deal with the aftermath every time. But it's hard for me in the evenings especially now with the time change, I. goes to bed around 4:15 so it's an even LONGER night - just what I didn't need! A few hours after I drop V. off, I begin missing him and then the sadness over Mark sets in because during these times when V. would be gone, I'd fill some of the time talking on the phone or visiting Mark - it was really the only good thing about V. being gone.

But now V. and Mark are gone, I. is growing up and slowly moving away and I'm just here.

That last sentence really drills down into the core of my pain - past, present, and quite possibly the future.