All Growed Up

There are so many milestones when your child is an infant.....first smile, first crawl, first step, first tooth, first word, and so on and on and on. I felt like there was a "first" every week when Grace was an infant. As a toddler, the milestones are further apart. They are just as exciting but now they happen every few months.

We had a milestone last week. And this morning. Same one but still. Its exciting.

Grace has named 2 of her toys.

For months now, all her toys had the same name: Me. Yep. My daughter is so creative. I think she got that from me actually---I named my toys Yellow Baby (yep, she was yellow), Blankie (uh-huh, a blanket), and Big Baby (she was bigger than me!). Apparently Grace did not inherit Hubby's creative mind when it comes to those kinds of things.

But she is proving me wrong lately.

Her new Ca.bbage Pa.tch Newborn has been named "Emmie" and a plastic frog (a freebie from a promo company at my job) was named "George" this morning.

Its such a simple thing, naming toys, but it really struck me this morning. Grace's imagination is growing so much. She is taking in the world around her and coming up with her own thoughts about it all. She identifies people as friends and can ask if her friends can come to her house to play, even when she hasnt seen them for a month. Its very cool. She has her own little social network!!!!! She spends time talking to her dolls and toys in her room every morning. I even heard her disciplining one of them the other day. Apparently Cheerleader Doll hit her friend Emmie and Grace was going to have none of that....Cheerleader Doll was on the Naughty Step/Chair when I got into the room. Pretty soon, I will have to be managing my daughter AND an imaginary friend.

The first steps, first tooth, first word.......they were all so amazing. But these new milestones, though further apart, are so incredible. Watching Grace go from an infant and toddler to a little person is worth all those sleepless nights and even a public tantrum or two.

She isnt a baby anymore but wow, what a cool kid she is becoming!