The dangling pigs

I recently realized my babies are growing up.
Okay, the passage of time, the purchase of bigger clothes and shoes clued me in.
The fact that Bug now stands tall enough his head provides a nice support for my sagging orangutan titties was another.
But my final clue was a stab to the heart.
I held my baby on my lap and realized she didn't fit perfectly anymore.
I"m getting used to it with the boys, the big feet and knobby knees and suffocating weight of sweaty boy. I know there will be legs over the sides of chairs and elbows in my ribs and a freshly shampooed head on my breast.
But my baby girl fit, so I was okay.
This weekend, she wouldn't sleep. So I bundled her onto my lap in the recliner, assuming a position we had assumed many times during her 14 month breastfeeding tenure. One chubby hand rested right on my breast, kneading slightly as she had always done. Her little mouth pursed and frowned and smiled, just like it had when she was teeny weenie.
But her legs dangled over my side, her feet hanging in the air.
And I found myself staring at hr little chubby pigs and realizing she is no longer a baby.
She is a toddler, racing on increasing steady steps towards becoming a three year old and then a preschooler, a college graduate, a bride, a mother.
And although I will always have room for her on my lap--for all of my kids even though I know, in time, my boys will shun that simple comfort--I stared at those dangling feet and knew my baby was truly gone.
And that my lap would never know the feel of my own baby, nestled there and content with the world, again.