Tomorrow, she wants to make her own cake – pink with pink frosting and topped with either a princess, or a miniature statuette of “mama and daddy, married.”

Tomorrow, she wants nothing specific for a gift, but would like to be “surprised”…perhaps with something “sparkly.”

Tomorrow, my youngest, my last, will be four.

You blink and they grow, they change, you’re moved forward and there’s no turning back.

But, in that fraction of second, when the blink is blinking, when the curtain is black before the lights come back up, there in my minds eye, in my heart, I see them clearly and forever, as this:

Downy soft hair, cheeks plump with the baby fat, mouths agape in silliness and wonder. And I feel every warm memory, I see their faces brand new again.

I blink.

And I can feel the damp newborn breath on my collarbone.

I blink.

And I can see baby Alex on Vinnie’s shoulders, squealing with a long strand of drool extending from his sloppy wet lips to his father’s forehead.

I blink.

And we’re apple picking, a family of four, Lila clutching apples to her chest and beaming. Just beaming. A smile so big, it makes me ache, in every good way.

I blink.

And I see a brother and sister puddle jumping in a deluge. Asher bounces on my hip and bangs on the window at his siblings, his thrilled squeals filling my ears.

I blink.

And we’re racing down Route 2, in labor, nearly a month ahead of time, for this little girl who would be our last. My blue eyed, fierce-hearted, comedienne, who has always, since her very arrival, done everything in her own time, in her own way and cannot be told otherwise.

I blink.

And time bends, for just the slightest of seconds, and only for me. And I have a lifetime with these people, who grow and change before my open eyes, these people who enhance my heart and mold me just as much as I try to mold them.

I blink.

I blink.

I blink.

I blink.

I blink. I blink. I blink.

I blink, and tomorrow she will be four. Time will keep on it’s merciless path of pushing us forward, but our lives will be one whole day fuller, richer and better for having her in it.

And we’ll have sticky frosting fingers, and pink glitter on the table…and more memories to fill in the spaces of my heart, the places I go, when I blink.