Growing Up

Here we are on the countdown to Daphne's first birthday. The venue is booked, invitations are out, and the birthday girl's outfit has been chosen. We're still working on teaching her to hold up one finger to show us her age. She can hold up one finger to try to gouge my eyes out, but other than that she seems confused. She's better at high 5.

Daphne is a mover and a shaker these days, doing her best to tear our house apart. But I am not complaining (yet) because taking time to pull out every toy from her toy box or all my freshly folded laundry from the laundry basket keeps her entertained for a whole 5 minutes. I can get lots done in 5 minutes. (Mostly refold the laundry.)
































She's as egocentric as any toddler can be, so I've taken to getting out a big mirror for her to entertain herself with. Hey, that's another 5 minutes (for me to put all her toys back away)!














Bath time is still a favorite, and even more fun now that she has the whole big tub to scoot around in. So much better than the little baby tub she used to use.













It seems like just the other day I was sitting with her in her room, showing her the baskets of toys and trying to convince her that playing with toys was fun. She was still at the stage where she could only see about 8 inches from her face, so the mysterious blurs I was waving over her head weren't really getting the reaction I wanted. Now she watches us do something, then pushes our hands away so that she can do it herself. We've moved on from tiny plastic teething rings to complex singing giraffes.













It makes me a little sad to think of leaving Daphne's first year and moving on to the second. But when I think about it, there's no way I would go back to her earlier days. She gets so much more fun with each passing month.

Plus, she says 'mama' now, clear as a bell. There's nothing better than that.