Breanna is going to be three in November and some days she seems so big. She talks up a storm and is fairly independent unless she’s tired or not well.

Other times she can seem so small. The first time I ever talked to her on the phone (on our anniversary when the kids had dinner with the grandparents so George and I could actually eat dinner together in peace), I was amazed at how little her voice can be when it’s not in the same room. When she caught that bad gastro at the end of last year, I was distressed over how tiny she looked as she lay listlessly beside me (I had it too, we spent a lot of time lying in bed together, moaning about how awful we felt).

Today Breanna had some surgery, minor surgery in the grand scheme of things even though it took over three hours, and when they brought her out to the recovery room, I saw her little body on the bed, being wheeled along while she was still passed out, an oxygen mask over her face, and I wanted to run over and just grab her off the bed.

When George and I were called in to sit with her, they said she could stay in the bed since she was just waking up and was basically a huge dead weight but I said no way – she was crying in confusion and she was so small, I didn’t care how much she weighed, I just wanted to sit and hold her. So I did.

She was very quiet once we got her back home and she spent two hours carefully eating noodles from her soup, slurping on applesauce, and watching a movie on the couch beside me.

And when I put her to bed, she was still so tiny after she fell asleep.

I wonder when it ever stops, this strange sensation of seeing your child as big and little all at the same time.

(Top photo taken this morning when we dropped Hayley off with some friends for the day before Breanna’s surgery. Second photo taken at the hospital in the waiting room.)