and yet another year flies by...

one year ago tonight (it was a saturday), my husband and i sat at our favorite local restaurant at just about this time of night.  as i was ordering my third beer, i casually joked, "i hope i'm not pregnant."  and he looked at me funnily.  "could you be?" he asked, and i thought about it.  i had been trying to keep track of my cycle for a few months at that point, so i pulled out my droid and opened up my handy-dandy 'app for that'!  "Hmmm," was my answer to him.  after a bit of nervous laughter, i realized that i could, in fact, very much be pregnant, because i was over a week late.  (i had not been keeping track as well as i thought, evidently.)  "i shouldn't drink the rest of this," i said very, very sadly.  "you may not be pregnant," P said very, very hopefully.
the next day (valentine's day morning), i woke up and took a test (i used to buy them in bulk, so i always had a test in the closet).  three minutes later, after chugging a whole mug of coffee- just in case, P and i (with a sweet little two year old tagging along) walked into the bathroom to check the results.  we stared at each other in shock as we read, clear as day, "PREGNANT."  we both smiled and said, "happy valentine's day," and walked out of the room.
about twenty minutes later, after the shock wore off, we ecstatically congratulated each other and M and the three of us danced around the kitchen!  it was the greatest (and honestly, pretty much most  unexpected) valentine's surprise!
i stared at the baby tonight as i put her to bed.  one year ago tomorrow, i found out that she was alive in my belly.  tomorrow, she will be exactly four months old.  this year (like so many as i get older) has been the fastest year of my life.
it seems like it was yesterday morning that i danced around the kitchen with my husband and my daughter, singing about a baby in my belly.  it seems like it was yesterday that we took M to the 20 week ultrasound, where we specifically asked NOT to know the sex of our baby, where we saw her perfect little body and heard her perfect little heart beat and we cried happy tears.  it seems like it was just yesterday that i awoke in the middle of the night with contractions that felt nothing like contractions, and was told, "It's a GIRL!!!" just hours later.  but in thinking back to that moment, it feels like it was just yesterday that i heard, "it's a GIRL!!!" for the first time in my life.  and that was almost three and  a half years ago.
some days, i swear i just stare at my girls, trying to soak in every detail exactly as it is now, because i know that in just a few short tomorrows, they'll be getting on  their first school bus, or walking out the door on a first date.  i want to grab them and suspend time, to hold them at exactly this moment forever.  but i can't.  all i can do is watch them and take it all in.  and hold on tight to these moments that we have- even the crazy ones.  because the next time i blink, P will be walking M or B down the aisle to hand her over to her new life, and at that time, this moment now will feel like it was just yesterday, too.