Brie's babble has become infinitely conversational. so much so, that I feel badly that I don't understand what she's saying (most of the time). It's in such earnest, with inflection and gestures and emphasis. I'm looking forward to just a few months from now, when babble will turn to recognizable phrases and words.
Brigid is walking about 20% of the time now, usually short distances from couch to coffee table, coffee table to piano, but sometimes she surprises us, and sets off confidently across the vast spaces of the dining room floor or the hall, teetering her weight from left to right as she moves one foot after the other.
Naps became briefly harder, partly because we're weaning in earnest now, and are down to nursing three times a day, which schedule leaves out the morning nap. But a happy suggestion from my mom has me singing her the same three lullabies before each bed time, and this sends her off easily into sleep.
I ask myself sometimes as I'm parenting, what Brigid would think if her 20 year old self could see whatever scene we're currently in the middle of. I think it helps me to be a better mother, because it gives me perspective on what I'm doing. Of course a one year old doesn't have the same dignity as a 20 year old - unless something's seriously wrong, you don't change a 20 year old's diapers - but I would like the future Brigid to smile if she got a peek back at her babyhood, and see how she was loved and cared for and trained and raised and taken care of. It also helps me with those, "no, really, dear, you'll understand someday" moments. Because, as I reflect on it, at 20 (or 30, or 40) she probably WILL understand why one does not hold sharp knives before one learns to use them, and why one is not allowed to dive headfirst off the couch, and why little girls really must go down for naps when they're so tired that they can't stop crying.
It reminds me of when I was a teenager, and I tried to do things that would make my 30 year old self proud of me, and not regretful.
More than that, it makes me really, really, really (with fear and trembling) look forward to meeting the 20 year old Brigid Elizabeth. God grant her grace as she grows. I bet she's beautiful.
I've pulled out all of our spinach, harvested the scant colander-ful of leaves left on the stalks, and planted half spinach, half broccali in its place. It's going to be hard to make myself buy lettuce and spinach from the store again; it was so nice just to pick it for free from the back yard. But our cucumbers and tomatoes are ripening, and so there's a whole new season of bounty on the way. We've had our first of those, and the peppers are getting bigger too. Adam was happy to eat cucumber without wax on the skin, and I LOVE garden tomatoes. We might just skip the lettuce and have cucumber and tomato salad all summer.
something I haven't mentioned about Brigid yet, that probably should go into her baby book, is how much she loves being outside. She heads straight to the door if it's propped open, and is happy for long periods of time crawling or toddling on the grass, tearing about leaves, examing dirt and rocks, or looking out for the neighbourhood cats and birds. Taking her into the backyard is a surefire cure for whatever ails her, and I'm so grateful to be living in a house at this stage in her development. God is very good to us!
I like how cheerful my little girl is when she wakes up. She has such a winsome smile for whoever comes in answer to her chirps. She doesn't even necessarily raise her arms in anxiety to be out of her crib. She just smiles this sleepy, beneficient smile at us and coos like a tiny baby instead of a little girl. Just don't put her down too soon after you do pick her up, or you might get complaints.
-Jess
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