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MonkeyDo turns 10 tomorrow.

Holy crap, when did that happen?

I want to say that it seems like she was just a wee, small thing, but I can't.

MonkeyDo has always been so fiercely independent. Often, her small stature gave her away and frustrated her no end.

She started walking on New Year's Day, 2000 at nine months.

She would scream bloody murder, kicking her legs and flailing for all she was worth when I would pull her away from MonkeySee's kindergarten class after morning drop offs.

She wanted to go, do, see - NOW! NOW! NOW!

She hated when she would run up against something she was too young or too small to participate in.

I feel like we've been waiting for her body and her age to catch up to her for years.

Part of me thinks "holy crap, when did she get so old?" and part of me thinks "holy crap, how is she only 10?"

And still I wait.

I find that I cannot wait to meet her as an teenager, as an adult. As she finds herself and becomes comfortable in who she is.

I know better than to wish away this time with her, but sometimes I long for just a little peek. Like flipping to the last page of a novel and reading a sentence or two.

I caught her doing that the other day while reading a Neil Gaiman book. She gasped and excitedly flipped back to where she was.

Her mother's daughter.

My favorite thing, though, the thing that will always make me think of her, is the way she sucked her fingers.

She started this very, very wee... Her two middle fingers in her mouth, suck-suck-suck.

It wasn't very long before one of the other fingers found a home in her nostril.

That made for super exciting mornings, let me tell you.

SweetPea, afraid for her orthodontic future, broke her of the habit around the time she started school.

When she's very tired or not feeling well, she will still suck her middle fingers in her sleep. I catch the sound of it as I walk by her room, always punctuated by a *gasp-gasp-sigh*.

It is one of my favorite sounds in the whole wide world and always makes me want to snuggle her up right then and there.

It makes me miss her soft, chunky baby self and cuddling her against my chest as she fell asleep, twitchy and sighing.

The only time she'd consent to being held for more than a few minutes.

My fierce little Monkey.

Always doing. Always forward. Always full speed ahead.

And one last day of the single digit life.