11 months, 1 day

A year ago today, I was anxiously waiting to meet the newest member of our family who, I felt, was taking her sweet time in coming. One month from now, she will be a toddler. It boggles me.

• Kathleen is changing almost faster than I can record (and believe me, I am updating her baby journal daily). She's a master crawler now and into anything and everything within reach. She's working on getting to anything and everything out of reach by preparing to walk. She's pulling herself up into the standing position constantly. Last week, nothing; this week, you can't keep her down. Literally, you cannot keep her down.


• Watching her learn to stand has its high and low points (no pun intended). One of the lower points is that it's now more difficult to get her to go to sleep. She has this wonderful new skill she wants to practice every waking (and sleeping) moment. I should be firm when she hauls herself up on the side of her crib, but it's impossible not to laugh when I see her grinning at me so proudly over the top of her crib rail.


• Peek-a-boo is the game du jour. She no longer needs mom or day to hold something in front of her and loudly wonder where she can possibly have disappeared to: she can do it herself. It's lovely to hear her giggling as she inexpertly holds something in front of her face - last night, it was her laundry - and watch the big grin appear from nowhere when we ask, "Where's Kathleen?"


• She loves experimenting. Her current experiments involve taking things in and out of containers. It's endlessly fascinating. Does this ball fit in that toy? Will that block fit in this hole? I feel sure it will soon progress to finding out how many quarters will fit into that DVD player.


• She insists on feeding herself. Her daycare teacher can feed her solids, but no one else. I thank goodness for Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense; otherwise, watching how little makes it to or into her mouth would concern me. But she's not starving, and just as importantly, she now enjoys her meal times. The power struggles over who controls the food are over. I'm responsible for providing the food; she's responsible for what and how much she eats. For us, it works.


• She ate bananas yesterday! She usually ignores the fruit I lovingly dice and place on her tray, opting instead for the puffs or the puree, but yesterday, she deigned to eat the bananas!

I could write more, but my lunch hour isn't long enough. Suffice it to say that our baby is growing up and she's making short work of it . . . too short for me.