Where Did My Baby Go?

No, I didn't lose her at the mall...not yet, at least. Although, I have uttered the phrase "Uh...where did she just crawl off to?" on more than one occasion since she gained mobility.

What I mean is that somehow, almost overnight, by baby turned into a toddler!

As I mentioned in "One Must Learn To Crawl Before...Never Mind", my daughter has been at least somewhat mobile for some time, as she learned to pull herself up on whatever was around her so she could sidestep her way around the house.

Once she had figured out how to support her own weight on her chubby little baby legs, my wife and I started to prepare her for the next step (heh heh, pun intended) by holding her hands and helping her "walk" around the house. While she really enjoyed this activity, whenever we would let go of her hands she would immediately drop down to her butt and crawl the rest of the way.

The other night she hit one of the biggest baby milestones when I aimed her at my wife and let go of her hands. She stood on her own for a second before taking two little steps on her own, ending in a final lunge for my wife's neck.

We were so excited that we played "pass the baby" for another hour, until her step count record had made it all the way to five. She seemed to be enjoying it too, because she would give us a huge two-toothy grin each time she completed a lap. Once she was too tired to take any more steps we put our new "play toy" to bed, where she slept for twelve straight hours in the same position, obviously worn out from practicing her new skill.

I'm pretty sure that during her twelve-hour snooze, she went through a metamorphosis, similar to the way a Caterpillar turns into a butterfly, because when she woke up the next day she seemed completely different.

In the morning, while we were all home and getting ready for work and school/daycare, she was was more smiley and playful than usual. However, the biggest difference was noticed when we placed her in the bathtub that night.

Suddenly she started doing several new mannerisms that she had never done before, like bouncing her hand over her mouth and making noises (similar to any caricature of an American Indian in Looney Tunes), after which she would stop and look at my wife and I, as if to see if we thought it was funny. If we laughed, then she would laugh. It was like she new she funny!

After her bath we played "pass the baby" another time (something my wife and I had been waiting to do all day), where our little one upped her step record to 14. Even more interesting to watch was when she decided that she was done practicing her walking, so she stepped over to a cabinet, walked along it for a few steps, then stepped away to walk over and play with her toys.

As my wife and I watch our daughter walk around the living room, going from toy to toy as she pleased, oblivious to our presence in the room, we realized that the adorable little milk-drinking sack of potatoes, that couldn't do anything but eat, sleep, and poop, that we had brought home eleven months ago had turned into something completely different: a toddler.

So, it seems like a new chapter in parenthood has just opened for me, and I hope to enjoy it as much as the previous one.