she lovesto tear uppaper my daughter turns eight months today. she’s so close to her first year birthday that slowly i’m preparing myself that she’s not going to be a “baby” anymore. she grows so fast. it’s cliche, but once you go through it, it’s like this ambivalent happy sad moment to see her grow. she’s really starting to learn that she doesn’t have the allowance to do everything she wants to do, play with everything that interests her. she’s starting to pick up on the word ‘no’ because she realizes my stern expression and becomes fixated with my reply to some of her behavior. i have to remind myself not to overuse it, overlook it, and overdo it; i also have to follow it with a hug, because she knows i don’t hate her. unjustly paraphrasing c.s. lewis, you just have to know when it’s ok to play the black and white keys on the piano. these days, she is creeping…getting to standing position independently and travelling with a support. she does crawl everywhere now which forced my brother to buy a swing gate for us because he was very worried about her ‘zealousness’ to ‘explore.’ [thanks to`]. she […]