Baby Steps

Today, my little Squish learned to crawl!! Oh wow, is it cool to see her try and figure out how to move all four appendages at once. She's getting the hang of it pretty fast. And then later in the day, she was doing the two-fisted toy thing and accidentally banged them together. You should have seen the intense "hmmm, what was that?" look on her face. So she did it again - banged 'em together again and looked up to find me with a triumphant "I figured it out, Mom!" look on her face. Then that smart little booger picked up a different toy and banged that one with the first toy - to see her joy of learning and exploring literally brought me to tears.

This kid loves to examine the tiny workings of things, the little details of how things work. She started with her own hands a few months ago - she'd twist them and wiggle them in all kinds of directions. Next she added toys to that mix, flinging them and throwing them all over the place as she figured out how her wrists functioned. For the last week or so, she's been carefully examining every inch of the living room rug, picking up the tiniest dust bunny or pull in the fabric...she doesn't eat them, just closely studies the thing and then puts it back where it was.

I remember when I was pregnant, someone told me how concerned they were that I was going to try and make Poppy Anne a copy of myself, that I was going to objectify her and make her my life, live vicariously through her, draw all my love from her. I thought at the time how crazy that sounded, and now that I have this amazing little person in my life, that person's sentiment is downright bizarre in my opinion. Why in the world would I try to change anything about this perfect little gift of God? Why in the world would I try to do anything other than help her become all she is capable of, all that is in her heart to be and do? Why would I want to copy screwed up and damaged ol' me when she's got such a beautiful canvas of her own started?

Watching her become more and more of herself is just the coolest thing ever. No words quite describe it adequately. A friend recently posted a Facebook note where he asked his daugther if she liked hot chocolate. She responded, "No, I like warm chocolate." I am still laughing over that one...because each little person is just that - their own person, and what a gift to be given the responsibility of helping them grow up. Scares the crap out of me some days, to be honest. But we take it one day at a time - thank goodness!

When I look at my  little extrovert, the quote, "You are so much sunshine to the square inch" comes to mind - man is she ever. Everywhere we go she just draws people to her with that amazing grin.  I even have people at Walmart who know us now and always make a point to stop and say hi to Poppy so they can get a smile. The number of comments about how that little smile has helped get people through their day...wow...total strangers, numerous lives touched by my little 8-month old's happy spirit and love of people. Doesn't matter what age, gender, color - she loves everybody. If she inherited anything from my grandpa Poppy, that would be what I would have hoped she'd get from him...the ability to just love on and enjoy people for who they are.

She teaches me every day...I try to be a good student.