nostalgia

perhaps it's the rain that has me feeling all nostalgic today.

or the fact that our little apple cheeks now stands completely upright in her crib and shakes the bars and says maaaaaaaaaaaaaaamammmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa when she's ready for her day to begin.

or it could be emma's pinchant for spitting food out and watching it fall to the ground; or for chasing the doggies until they move into a corner where she can't reach them; or for playing in their water bowl after commando "crawling" as fast as lightening when i turn around....

or, perhaps it's just the rain.

whatever the reason, i have been recalling how much emma has grown over the past several many months  -how much of an explorer and an individual she has become...

how she is no longer my baby girl, but has instead gone the way of an amazing, adorable, inquisitive, ever-surprising toddler.

take a week ago, for example, when emma learned in her educational therapy session how to hold a tiny toy bottle and feed a tiny toy baby, and then later that week grabbed her empty bottle (which, incidentally, she refuses to do on her own when it's time for her to have a bottle of milk) and tried to put it in my mouth and then her dada's mouth, with a little giggle.

or, yesterday, when we were practicing the letters of the alphabet with emma. my husband and i stated and then sang the letters of the alphabet to the letter "L", which we repeated with its sound over and over, and then used it in a word ("lemon") all while having emma look at a flash card that had a yellow lemon on it. quite suddenly, almost under her breath, emma said lemon (of course, not that precisely, but i know it was lemon because both my husband and i started to cry the minute she said it). and, then, she repeated it over and over again.

she's just such a big girl now!

so, in the spirit of sharing my rainy-day nostalgia for my baby girl apple cheeks, i thought i'd post a few photos i've been flipping through today. they are of our little e when she was just a whisper of a baby.

at the time these photos were taken, we had no idea how she could be any more amazing than she was in those moments.

but, she is.

and, i have a hunch, will continue to be each new day.