The Big 1-0!

Emmeline is 10 months old today!  I can't believe it.  It felt like we waited forever and a day for her to arrive but since she has been born the time has just flown by.  She is doing so many amazing, incredible things...including standing up on her own without holding on to anything. She even took one step forward on Saturday!  She is such a character: laughing, mimicking, chasing the cats and pulling their tails, playing, observing, getting into everything, yelling (unfortunately even some screaming...ug).  Paul and I are having so much fun with her.  Her mobility is hard to keep up with sometimes but she sure does enjoy getting around.

This evening we celebrated her ten-month-day by moving her nursery around.  She has gotten so big that she has been able to reach and pull on the curtains near her crib.  We had to rearrange everything so that she cannot reach anything from her crib...what a task!  Emmeline and I spent the earlier part of the day on campus.  I met with my dissertation advisor and when he saw Emmeline moving, he warned me that I only had about two more weeks before she was walking.  Yikes!

Campus is quite busy these days because it is orientation season.  As I pushed Emmeline in her stroller and watched parents with their almost-grown children, I realized that in about 17 years I would be in their shoes.  My heart aches thinking about it.  I vividly remember watching my parents and baby sister tearfully drive away as I stood on the curb outside my first dormitory in Duluth, MN.  Five  years later my family drove away again, except this time Paul and I were standing on a curb in Delaware and they were driving 1,500 miles back west (sniff).  Well, I know I have put my parents through their share of heartache and goodbyes...and I know that my turn is coming, too.  Wherever Emmeline's future takes her, I know I will be proud of her but I will also cherish these wonderful early days of Cheerios falling out of her diaper, wobbly knees, and chapped thumbs:

Emmeline and the cats love to tease

each other under the door

Emmeline shows off her skills behind

the wheel.  Notice that her mouth is wide open;

she was yelling at the top of her lungs...just for fun!

Yelling here again, though not for fun

"What do you have, mommy?  I want it!"

This picture is poor quality, but in it you

can see Emmeline standing on her own...

though a bit wobbly!

"Baby prison"