The fire works have ended.   The old year lays his head down on the soft pillow of time.  He covers himself in the blankets of history and sighs his last breathe....tempis fugit....

      Baby New Year cries from her basket on the front steps all rosy cheeked and blonde curled, "Gaaa!" she laughs at us.

      We look at her like we are new parents.  What will she bring? Chaos or calm, Joy or sadness?  Will we mourn her passing or bid her good riddance. So many expectations.

      We pick her up from her nest of babywraps.  She is heavier than she looks.

     "Wishhhhh!" she giggles and tips her head looking at us with those big baby blue eyes.

     We laugh along with her, what shall we wish for? She crawls about, putting seconds in her mouth and laughing.

     "Make a wish!" she yells, gathering the minutes into little piles, and gives us a knowing smile. Minutes are more filling, she grows quickly.

     "Make a wish! Make a wish!" she yells as she runs through the house.

     We never realise, the wish is past, we missed our time.  That brief millionth of a second between the old year's last breathe, and baby new year's first.

      "Make a wish!"says the little girl, putting the hours, minutes seconds into baskets. She peels the wrapper off a new day and takes a bite.

     What do we wish for? It's got to be good, we only get one New Year wish. We think and think and finally come up with one spectacular wish. The little girl is gone. In her place is a sullen teenager with too much eyeliner and a tattoo on her arm. "annos 2012"

     We have our wish we tell her as she crams the seconds, hours, minutes and days into her backpack. She rolls her eyes as she takes a big bite out of a week.

    "Too late, you blew it," she says as she picks up her bags and walks to the door. She turns to look at us, "You people are so lame!"

     We run after her. She is throwing the bags into the boot of a beat up car.  She tosses her hair, rolls her eyes again as she opens up a bag of months.

    "Look, I gotta go, I'm hungry, I can't be late." she says pouring months from the bag into her mouth. She gets into the car and slams the door. She rolls down the window. The teenager has grown into a young woman.

    "Truly, I am sorry. But there are rules I must follow. You'll have to try again next year."  she drives off, leaving us standing there crying.

      Through our tears we see a smiley sticker on the bumper with four small letters below......

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@ 2012 D. Robertsdottir