love
I can't believe just how much I love my baby. It's so amazing that just this time last year, she was barely crawling. How did I get so lucky to have this little girl in my life? I can't imagine life without her now. I look at her and see her grinning at Elmo or trying so hard to put her shoe on or one of the countless other things I watch her do all night, and it almost makes me cry sometimes. I see the determination on her face when she's trying to climb into the kitchen chair; the pride when she makes it; the sheer enjoyment of watching her Elmo DVD; the fierceness in her eye when she tries to convince me to give her animal crackers for supper; the disgust when I give her (God forbid!) green beans. I pick up the camera to try to capture it, because I know that it will be gone so soon, but I look at the picture and it's so 2-dimensional. It can't catch all the feeling in the moment. Tonight, she was sitting against the arm of the couch watching TV streched out with her arms bent and hands behind her head. She just had this grin on her face that I want to much to remember. Mostly what the camera picked up, though, was her mouth halfway open, and her hair all messed up. I didn't even see those things. Oh well, at least it'll remind me of what I saw - my baby.