My littlest turned one recently. While I have been happily celebrating her healthy milestones and trying to snap a photo on the same day each month (with stuffed elephant for scale) to document how much she’s growing and changing, there’s something bittersweet about the day she officially entered toddlerhood.
She was our little baby burrito, calm, sleepy and swaddled, and now she’s already walking across the room. It seemed to go even faster the second time around.
A top 10 list of what I will miss most:
10: Getting nap trapped under a sleeping infant who wakes up the second you stand up to put her in her crib. It got old sometimes, but that relaxing, baby sleeping in your arms feeling can’t be beat.
9: No whining! Babies cry, but whining is a special toddler skill. It is already creeping in when big sister takes our little one’s toy.
8: Open mouthed baby kisses all over my face, even if I do end up getting my nose bitten sometimes.
7: Those gummy baby smiles that are already long gone – our little one has eight, going on ten, teeth already.
6: The look of delight on our baby’s face when she says a word that we understand for the first time. You get me! You really get me!
5: Leaving those “you can never spoil a baby” days behind and having to put my disciplinarian hat on. It never fits me quite right.
4: The funny way our baby girl “dances” to any music she hears, even the NPR Weekend Edition theme.
3: Being Mama, before her baby talk fades, making me Mommy or Mom.
2: Tiny toes.
1: That sweet, milky baby smell.
