Itty Bitty Baby

Audrey,

I am such a baby. I'm so proud of the little toddler you are growing into and yet I still want you to stay my sweet little baby.

You are one!

How did that happen?

Was the last year on warp-speed?

Sorry - what a predictable question - every Mom asks herself that question after the first year because you can still remember what it was like to carry you in my belly and those middle of the night feedings and all the ways that made me so necessary to you.

You are so capable already. The doctor said at your one year visit that you didn't need bottles anymore so you are on sippy cups only and doing just fine with it. You are trying and succeeding incredibly well with using utensils at the dinner table and eating like a big girl.

As if feeding yourself wasn't enough of a sign that you aren't my itty bitty baby anymore, you are also feeding your baby dolls with pretend plastic bottles and hugging them to your breast and patting their backs with such care and concern. In the very next breath, you will carelessly toss them over your shoulder as you head off to explore the next thing.

Like your brother Jack before you, you LOVE to climb. You will climb anything and you have absolutely no fear of it. Stairs, pushing boxes or containers over to the sofa and climbing up on them, climbing on the chairs/boxes and standing up and grinning the biggest cheese-eating grin anyone ever saw because you are just so proud of what you can do. It's a very "LOOK AT ME!" pride and I do have to stop and admire you - your determination and the way you beam in your successes. On the reverse side, when you try something and you just can't do it, it absolutely breaks your heart. You either throw yourself backwards in desperate frustration - with no regard to your own safety - or you curl forward in a sobbing ball on the floor, like the collapsing of a dying star.

You love to talk. You are so proud of your developing communication skills. And not surprisingly for a daughter of mine - one of your first words is "Dah-gee" which you generally say to the dogs with your little arms outstretched reaching to pull their hairy faces to your little face and generally with your mouth open to give them a kiss which they always willingly oblige much to your ecstatic joy and to my absolute horror. I dive towards you and the dogs to try to keep them from licking the inside of your mouth and you must think I am a very peculiar mom to be so worried about the transfer of LOVE! Because that's what you are doing - you are loving your "dah-gee"s.

You can also say "bahl" for ball and "aaack" for Jack. You are constantly trying new words and succeeding. Today I was telling you that "Dah-gees" say "RUFF RUFF" and you deliberately tried it out: raaaaaaaaah raaaaaaaaaah to which I squealed and clapped YEEAH, AUDREY! THAT'S RIGHT! DOGGY'S SAY RUFF RUFF!

I'm just enjoying the heck out of you, Little Girl! Mommy loves you!

**MmmmmmmmWaaaaaaaaaah**

Mah-Mee