These days, my friends, are wild.
I remember a tiny baby with a fairly squishy (but still beautiful) face and a full, dark head of hair. She hardly moved, but hardly cried. Slept all the time, even while nursing. She was amazing and easy and quiet.
Some things have changed.
Her hair, after falling out, is now a full head of lighter brown duck fluff, usually sticking up in all directions. Her eyelashes rival the boys and her smile puts all of ours to shame. Most especially the dimples.
She learned to crawl at month seven, but it was mostly dragging herself across the carpet. Now she is fully up on knees, usually crawling to something she can pull up on to stand. She creeps around tabletops, chairs, and anything she can find, grinning as she goes. The hard landing thump on her bottom doesn’t seem to bother her. She keeps right on trucking.
And now she trucks from the TV room to the kitchen and back and to our room and then through the TV room again and then the boys room and then her room and then back to the TV room, singing ah-ah-ah-ah as she goes.
These are the days of wide, curious eyes. Of everything being NEW. We won’t get those days again, you and I. Save for exotic travels or gazing on the face of a new baby. Wonder has been replaced by the familiar.
I miss wonder, but I get to relive it again, just a little, as I watch my little ankle-grabber crawling around, grabbing at my ankles so she can experience the wonder of standing on her own two, tiny, fat feet.
I love her, this little one.
I envy this life, stretching ahead of her. Not that I regret my own, but yearn for the reality of having so many days yet to live. I already miss these days, knowing they will pass soon to full-blown tantrums (of which I’ve had a glimpse—see photo). I try to just soak in the moments with her, my dimpled, dazzling wonder of a girl, ready to take on this whole world.
I’ll have to get some better photos soon. It’s hard to get Cooper when she’s not in motion and for the moment, the outdoor world with its better light has too many leaves for her to eat.