rosie

Today, Rosie is five.

A few days before Rosie was born, we had an ultrasound. She was a solid ten days late, and my midwife just wanted to have a peek in there to make sure she was okay.

She was big and ready, and her form was so much clearer than what we had seen in the ultrasound 5 months earlier.

“Awwww,” we said to each other. “Look at her butt!”
“Um, actually,” the technician interrupted. “That would be her face.”

Please forgive me if you’ve heard this story before. I tell it a lot. But only because we get stopped on the street all the time, and all that we hear is, “those cheeks!” I know that this is a food blog and everything, but if you’ve met my Rose, you know that I’m not straying so far off topic here. Since she was born, somehow everyone around her has had the desire to eat her. Doesn’t that sound horrible? But I understand the urge. It’s like there is a light inside her, and it draws people in. I can’t even tell you how many times I have gone in to kiss one of her cheeks, only to end up with the whole thing in my mouth. Delicious things, those cheeks.

My grandfather died when I was pregnant with Rose, and we decided that we would name her Ida if she was a girl. Ida was my grandfather’s mother, and she was a tough little Jewish woman from New York. But when she was born, she had those cheeks, and they were as red as apples. The midwife swooped her onto my chest, and I couldn’t help myself.
“Look how-“
Joey joined me, and we finished the sentence together…”rosey she is.”
And that’s how Rosie was born. She came out and introduced herself.
After her grand entrance, she nursed for a few minutes, and then she slept for three months. We started to refer to her as the potato, and she slept everywhere we put her- on the table, on the floor- we often forgot she was there. She nursed and she slept, but mostly she slept.
But then she woke up. She woke up laughing, and she hasn’t stopped since.
I think it was a good day for Rose, but then, most days are. She got to walk around the sun five times at school, and I picked her up early. We sloshed around on the wet and snowy sidewalks, and I took her out for lunch, where she ate her favorite lunch of bread while she made silly faces at me and kept me laughing for an entire hour. She got her own library card, and then she had her favorite dinner of bread. And throughout the whole day, she laughed, and with every moment, she thanked me, or whoever was closest to her.
If only every day could be Rosie’s birthday. Until next year, then.