Five.

You know that moment when you meet your baby for the first time and you've been waiting to meet them your entire life so you're surprised you don't recognize them right away and you try to take it all in so that you never forget this perfect little bundle and memorize everything? The way they smell, the way their body feels warm against yours, their little nose and eyes and fingers and toes and spiky little fine hair. Baby, sweet baby. They grow and there are so many firsts you can't get back and so many lasts you can't even count or keep track when the last 'last thing' was or the next first thing is coming and so every fiber of your being screams at you to keep holding them close and keep taking it all in forever and never let them go. So you do that, but also at the same time your heart screams let them go! Let them fly and soar and accomplish more than you ever dreamed of. So you do that, too.

And one day that little baby becomes this brilliant, inventive, curious, strong, brave and fierce little girl who is actually five years old and some sort of shining beacon of everything that is wonderful and beautiful in the entire world.

That moment. This kid. Happy new years. Happy birthday!

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, 

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, 

and He bends you with His might 

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, 

so He loves also the bow that is stable.