From One Day to the Next

It's been a wonderment of beginings for my little girl.  On Christmas day, she tried her first banana.  Grace basically sucked on it and then spit it out!  On New Years day, she not only got her first tooth, but was starting to lift her tummy off the ground and get on all fours.  Her inspiration?  Our kitty  Go figure, 13 days later she would decide to take her first coordinated crawling exploration!  Now, she's just learning to pivot all around and once she finds our cat, it's game over.  She's on a straight path to her, and boy is she getting some momentum in her speed!  Grace has also given me the pleasure of a melting heart.  Her newest thing is to say "Mam-mam" when she has a need to be met.  It's purely the sweetest thing.  I never thought that a sound as simple as "mam-mam" could have such an effect on a person.  She's only six months (1/20/12) but I can't ever see how I lived without her.  Truly, the answer is that I didn't.  When I was talking with a resident that I work with, they always ask how my daughter is, what's she doing these days, etc.  The resident then made the statement that I just beam every time she asks me about Grace and that I truly look like a happy mommy.  She proceeded to tell me that she feels the best part of her life was raising her children and that she felt that she didn't really begin to live until they were born.  At that moment, it clicked and I knew exactly the feeling she was talking about.  It amazes me how one little collection of cells can grow inside you to a beautiful, warm, cuddly baby that you love more than life itself.  Better than any baby doll you ever had growing up! 

With a child, you don't know what's going to happen from one day to the next.  Every morning when you both wake up, you may think you know what's in store for the day when in actuality, you have no idea!  Just as I didn't know when I peed on that little stick, it was going to come back saying "Pregnant".  I didn't know that I was going to be the happiest pregnant woman around and absolutely adore pregnancy.  I didn't know that my world would come crashing down after being transfered out of my birth center and resulting in bringing my daughter into this world via ceserean.  Or that because of that, I would feel a disconnect from her that we would have to work hard on making that bond and deal with our issues breastfeeding.  So many unknowns just in those first months!  And now, we are as connected as magnets - it's hard to pull us apart even when we are!  She's still breastfeeding, crawling, babbling and saying "mam-mam", sitting up, rolling all around like it's going out of style, reaching for everything in sight, laughing hysterically and brightening our day with the simplest smile.  All these milestones and it feels like she was just born the other day.  It's shocking how fast time flies by you when you have something to look forward to each day.  I hate leaving her in the morning to go to work, but I anxiously await my return home and now, I'm greeted with a huge smile and today, she crawled after me when I went to change my clothes!  She's growing up so quickly!  I wonder what new adventure in parenting tomorrow may bring?