As Tall as My Heart

She will be five in May, and stands almost as tall as my heart now. She weighs 42 pounds and the days when I can pick her up and hold her close are numbered. Each time I see her I can tell she has grown, and can almost see her growing before my eyes. Every once in a while I glimpse a trace of her "baby face," but most of the time she has the face of a little girl on the verge of leaving her baby and toddler days behind. She is a little "girly-girl," whose favorite color is pink, who loves to wear dresses (even in January), and who is never quiet, always singing or talking or babbling. We tease her about looking for her "off button," but there's nothing sweeter to my ears than her little voice singing or talking to herself as she plays with her "babies," as she calls her dolls and stuffed animals. She loves to line them up (all nine of them) on her daybed in her room at our house, and play "school." I think she would literally play all day long if her Great-Grandmother and I would sit and play with her. Her imagination just goes wild, as she "talks" for her dolls who are the "students" ... and we can get her to sing, count, do arithmetic, say the Pledge of Allegiance," and spell, as long as she's in her "school" mode. I used to love the way she pronounced her "L's" as "W's," as in "wook," for look, and "yewwow," for yellow. It made me sad when she learned to pronounce her L's, but she still hasn't quite mastered the "th" sound and says "free" for the word three. I know that's going to change soon, too, but for now, it's precious and reminds me that she's still a baby in lots of ways. One thing that hasn't changed, though, is her love for her "purple bwankie." It was made for her before she was born, by one of her mommy's friends, out of the softest yarn I've ever felt. I guess its softness is why she chose it as her "special" blanket. It's never far away, except when her mommy or daddy literally sneaks it away to be washed. You can always tell when she's tired or feeling a little insecure by those little fingers gently kneading the blanket, with her mouth drawn up like a rosebud in that precious way she did when she was a baby. Oh, how my heart melts when she does that. Through the years, and in hundreds of pictures, her "purple bwankie" was never far from her side. It rode in her lap in the car, but wasn't allowed to be taken inside a store or restaurant because of "germs." It was on the kitchen counter when she helped me cook ... Or in her hands while she watched tv ... And even on Christmas morning ... As time went by, the beloved blanket faded and started to unravel, its yarn becoming thinner and its crocheted holes bigger (this picture was taken last summer). Her mommy tried to fix it ... But it was beyond help, and even though it more closely resembles a tattered little ball of yarn now ... to her, it's still her "purple bwankie." I snapped this picture while she was playing a game on my computer, and it's the most recent one I've taken of the blanket. She doesn't keep it as close these days, but sometimes she will stop what she's doing and say, "Where's my purple bwankie?" (I love that she still pronounces the "l" as a "w" when it comes to her blanket) ... and off she goes to find it. She sleeps with it balled up under her chin, and comes downstairs in the mornings carrying it and two or three of her "babies," ready to greet the day. When the day comes that she's outgrown her "blanket," or it has dwindled to just a few strands of yarn, I hope to preserve it somehow for her to keep and carry on her wedding day as her "something old." By the way, for those of you who don't know ... she is our granddaughter Avery Grace, and she is the sunshine of my life.