I cringe every year on my youngest daughter’s birthday.

I cringe because the realization hits me that my youngest is another year older. That it’s another year further away from the moment in my life when I had babies. I am now considered an “older” mother. I don’t have small children anymore. Now that she’s 7, I have no excuses. I can no longer ever tell people I have small children. No babies. No toddlers. No preschoolers. No kindergarteners. After nearly 12 years of being the mother to little kids I have graduated into being the mother to big kids. The thought is all at once liberating… and terrifying.

My baby is 7. How is that possible?

I think back to all those years of tears and struggle; diaper changes and spit up; tantrums and sleeplessness. I thought it would never end. I thought I would never end up here: with “big” kids. But here I am. And it happened in the blink of an eye. I used to hate when people would tell me that it all goes by so fast. It felt more like an eternity. But fast it went. And here we are.

My baby is 7.

We’ve all graduated into a different phase of our lives. Now our lives revolve around homework and friends and boys. I no longer have to beg my husband to go get the crying baby. Now I have to beg him to make the kids clean their rooms.

She’s reading. She’s writing. She sings and dances and performs. She is more grown up than I’d like. She has the biggest heart. She drives me crazy. She is smart and funny and aggravating.

I never wanted three children. I was happy with two. I couldn’t imagine what I would do with, or how I would handle, three children. I still don’t know how I handled three little girls all 2 years apart. It’s a blur. A blur of crying and nursing and changing and playing and sleeping and whining and rocking.

And now she’s 7. And I don’t know what I would do without her.

She’s 7. But she will always be my baby.

I love you Lauryn. Happy Birthday!