Some Things

Seriously, there have been so many times over the past couple of weeks that I've thought: "I should really put that on my blog" but then life happened and I never made time to sit here and type it out and here I am now- finally. I don't know where the times goes... oh yeah- to chasing after my almost one-year-old who is now WALKING!!  I can't believe I didn't even make an official announcement here. I suppose it's because I was waiting for the day when she just quit crawling and suddenly became a "walker" and I didn't really expect that it would happen slowly until one day I would realize "Yeah, she's totally walking more than she's crawling now." But she is. And I love it!! I guess she "started walking" all the time sometime last week. I feel like I should know the day; Mommy: fail. Oh well!

I don't have time to organize all my random thoughts (since I'm not certain how long nap time will last), so here they are in no particular order, except the order I thought of them...

- I find it hilarious and a little disturbing that when I snap Sydney's bib on her in her highchair, the first thing she does is check the pouch to see if there are leftovers from the previous meal. (Have I put a dirty bib on her that many times? For the record, no- she doesn't usually find anything, but she always checks!)

- I know I've said it before, but she's fearless! We bought her a slide a couple of weeks ago and gave it to her (an early birthday present). It only took her a day to figure out how to climb up by herself. She loves to stand on the platform, raise her little hands, and cheer for herself (and make Mommy extremely nervous).

- She loves reinforcement, and has come to expect applause for certain things. I was trying to teach her to put her blocks back in the bucket, and worked on it with her several times. When she finally dropped the block in by herself the first time, I cheered like crazy. Now she likes to take the blocks out and play with them for a minute, before she drops them back in-- and looks up at me waiting for the cheers. And I oblige. She's so funny!

- This was supposed to be posted last week on Wordless Wednesday. Sorry it's now Monday, and there are plenty of words.

Yes, she's climbing the stairs now. By herself. She's actually only done it once by herself, but you know what I mean. We still haven't figured out how to teach her to go down yet, though. She's not interested in going backwards on her belly (in reverse of how she gets up); she gets too distracted and starts going back up again. And she's too little to sit on her bottom and scoot down- I tried that for about a minute when I realized that her little legs are still too short- she just sat on the edge and leaned forward, which works great on her slide but is a recipe for disaster on the stairs.

- My friend Shanna called today to share a sweet story about her little boy, Aiden (almost 3). I get to teach his Sunday School class every week. Aiden holds a special place in my heart because he loves Sydney, and always has! Anyway, this morning at Publix, he asked Shanna what the bagger's name was, and she told him, "Ellis." Aiden replied, "Like the team Ms. Dixon likes." "What are you talking about?" "You know, EL-LIS-YU- Ms. Dixon's team! (LSU)" Love him, love him, love him!

- Today is November 15; last year, it was my due date. I jokingly put on Facebook this morning that I observed a moment of silence in remembrance of the longest day ever (since Nov. 15 came and went last year with no baby). But I wasn't really joking. I've spent a lot of time today thinking about what I was doing last year in these final days of waiting to meet Sydney. I got excited all over again remembering the anticipation. I teared up (confession, am tearing up again) thanking God for how He changed me a year ago, and how He has blessed me beyond belief every day since. I am SO thankful.

We had a big party here on Saturday, but you'll have to wait for the details on that until Wednesday (Syd's actual birthday). And although Wednesdays are usually wordless, I can't make any promises this time. I'm more excited than she is! Here's a little sneak peek...