I blinked

... and summer was gone. How is it that we're almost through August? I blinked again and suddenly realized Number One Girl (aka the Doodle) will be turning SIX. Howzat???

When she was a little less than a year old, the Doodle loved being lulled to sleep by her "music machine", a cheap WalMart CD-and-cassette player we had picked up for camping. One night, having misplaced the usual music box, we put on the Rockabye Baby! cover of all things Coldplay. After a token display of protest, she drifted off to a vibraphone-and-chimes rendition of "In My Place". And so did we.

She has listened to that disc almost non-stop for five years. FIVE YEARS. We'd try to switch it up just for variety's sake, but she'd have a meltdown. We even tried to play the real Coldplay songs but she said hers sounded better. "Are you going to stay for three songs?" she'd always ask, and we'd end up staying for five, or seven, or the whole album (mostly because we were already asleep after the first two.)

Then, one day about a week ago, she didn't want her music machine on anymore. The silence that night was almost deafening. She slept soundlessly; I lay awake wondering how I could possibly relax without my instrumental "Yellow" nightcap. And also wondering how I was going to face the fact that yes, indeed, my children were growing up.

I blinked again, and my baby girl - not so baby anymore - passed that egg-shaped stereo on to her little sister tonight. Having forgotten the Smurf's monitor base at Grammy's house (it plays 15 different lullabies) I was headed for a disastrous bedtime. But the Doodle graciously offered up the player in the interim, such a mature, big-sisterly thing to do. I gave her a huge hug, told her I loved her and that I was proud of her.

"I know," she replied, putting on the airs of both a martyred saint and celebrated movie star all at the same time.

Humble, too. (Don't know WHERE she gets that from ...)