clyde turned eight on thursday, and we’ve been partying down with chocolate desserts, including the cake above, every day since. last party was today with a few of his friends, pizza, TJ’s dutch cocoa and chocolate chip brownies, and vanilla ice cream.

eight years ago i was a new mom with a newborn baby, sobbing every other minute with hormonal shifts. i was flailing, adoring, fragile, and completely completely love struck but totally new to the feelings around all of it. it’s so hard to remember the me i was back then, the me without all that i have experienced and become since then.

sure, it’s crazy to think of your once-newborn baby turning eight, but possibly even more mind boggling to go back in your mind to the person you once were and consider that she didn’t know, not an inkling, all the places she was going to get to go. she didn’t know all the things that baby and later his brother and all the life in between was going to teach her. i didn’t know…

when clyde was new, i remember constantly telling myself it was all going to pass by so quickly and to really try to be present and take it all in. to hold each moment like breath. hold it deep. remember. really really remember. but nonetheless, it just kept on slipping away.

off to go sniff my babies’ heads and hold in the breaths as long as i can.