I was singing “You are my sunshine..my only sunshine…lah la la lah la….” (like I do all the live long day now) to Baby Bug today as I changed her diaper on the scratchy grass at the park, when suddenly it hit me: She is my sunshine. If she wasn’t with me, my skies would be so gray.

Sometimes I forget what life was like like before Baby Bug. What was it like not to be toting around a seventeen pound companion wherever I go? She goes everywhere with me. The laundromat, the grocery store, the gas station, the many many many public restrooms I must visit because I have a bladder the size of a pea.

So many times I have to tell her, “No, icky! Don’t touch that!” I don’t even know what it’s like to go to the bathroom by myself any more. Or get into the car without thinking about the windows being down so she doesn’t die of heat exhaustion before I can get her car seat buckled. I heft her in and out of her car seat about a thousand times a day. It’s like second nature. Like wearing a purse.

When I was a kid I used to always daydream about having a little pet mouse that could sit on my shoulder and talk to me all day long (and maybe whisper the answers to timed math quiz questions). Now, I have that constant companion. I might not understand what she is saying all the time but she definitely talks to me all day. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to do math for me.

When I sat there on the grass at the park, staring down at this little wiggly body who can’t wait to flip over and run away diaper- less to the sand box, I was suddenly hit with how very very sad I am going to be when she grows up and leaves me someday. Now it’s all making sense why some mothers refuse to let go of their children even when it is the best thing they can do for them.

Sure I’ll always have Toby and my hobbies and my cats and whoever else comes into my life between now and then… but she will always be my sunshine. My only sunshine.

p.s. I am aware that having this sort of epiphamy while changing a poopy diaper doesn’t really make for the most poetic visual but that’s what really happened. I’ve never been very good at writing fiction.