Milestones (Growing Older)

Caetlin said her first sentence today, even though we are using a somewhat elastic definition of sentence here. It was at least 2 words strung together to make a complete thought. We were getting ready to walk out the door to work this morning, and Bruce was leading the dog toward the door so he could go potty. Caetlin, finished with her breakfast, toddled after, doing her adorable babbling. Then, at full volume and kind of out of nowhere, "BYE, DOG!"

At least three times, following after the dog as he went outside, "BYE, DOG!"

This feels noteworthy to me. Single words, I can comprehend, but the idea of my just-barely-16-month-old daughter speaking in sentences seems so foreign. Kind of the mental counterpart to my being freaked out by her having teeth as a symbol of her growing up. If she can speak in sentences, that means she's not a baby anymore. Not MY baby. Oh, who are we kidding, she's always going to be my baby! But not literally a baby, which makes me sad, even though she is so much fun and so much easier to deal with.

I guess I ponder these things as we start talking about having another child. I miss Caetlin's babyhood, and the time we spent with her just taking care of her and getting to know her. I want that back, but I know that's not what we'll get with a second baby, since it won't be just the three of us. I'm sure having a second is wonderful in so many different ways that I can't imagine right now, but it won't be the same, and that is some of what gives me pause. What I really want is to recreate that time with her, to get to know the new baby the way we got to know her. I don't know; maybe what I really want is her to be the baby she was again.

Because she's not anybody's baby, not physically, anymore.

Other developments:
New favorite game: saying, "No! No!" to which one of us will respond, "Yes! Yes!" Rinse, repeat.

She has so many teeth now that she looks more like she has gaps where teeth aren't, rather than having isolated teeth in the middle of gums. Relatedly, it's funny to her when she sticks her finger in my mouth and I bite on it gently. For some reason this cracks her up.

She's gotten very adept at getting around the "No standing, no crawling" rule in the bathtub, and has become very adroit at scooting around on her bottom with one knee on the tub floor and one foot behind her. Relatedly, her new favorite game is to stick her face (really just her chin) into the water and laugh like a maniac.

She loves the "Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck" song that our good friends from California taught us. The last verse is "Slowly, slowly, back to the station," which she'll join in on, often chiming in on that verse throughout the song. Except all she knows is, "Slowly, slowly." So she sings, "slowly, slowly" all through the song.

She's a fan of Ingrid Michaelson's song "The Way I Am," which Mommy sings to her with a few modifications. Specifically, rather than, "Cause I love the way you call me baby," of course the lyric becomes "I love the way you call me Mommy." And, slightly more problematically, "I'd buy you Rogaine/When you start losing all your hair," becomes "I'll buy you product/when you start doing up your hair." It's pretty close, I'd say. Anyway, she seems to like it, my singing voice notwithstanding.

Anyway, she's growing up. I suppose I can't stop that.

For a late Christmas gift for those of you still doing your shopping (yeah, I might be shopping on Christmas eve this year, so sue me), this makes a great- if tear jerking- gift for a parent in your life, especially of a little girl.