It’s been six months since our happy, smiley Isabelle was born.  Realizing it’s been six months doesn’t phase me much, but then when I think that it’s been half a year, I’m taken aback.  Maybe because life has been only, well, life.  No holidays or special occasions.  No finished school years or new endeavors.  Just the everyday that somehow slips by in a blur of normalcy.

And we end up here – with memories and moments and changes that all tell me that the newborn days really are over, but a heart that feels like this sweet girl in my arms should still be content to just sleep long hours, with head close to my heartbeat.  Instead, she wants to go.  Nevermind that she can’t take herself anywhere yet.  But she can (and does) grab at anything within leaning and reaching distance.    Her legs and arms move non-stop, as if the motion alone might be enough to will her to that amazing spot across the room she can’t stop staring at.

She talks in her own adorable but completely incoherent baby babble whether there’s anyone around to listen, or not.  She puts most things in her mouth, but by far her favorite are her ring and middle fingers, stuck in at once with her index finger and pinky splayed out beside her mouth…a pose which is kind of quirky but incredibly cute all the same.

She certainly isn’t an always-content baby, but she does love to smile at people, and she loves to have people smile at her.  She is very particular about having completely undivided attention.  Try reading a sibling a book while holding her and she’ll be sure to express her disapproval.  It still surprises me how quickly these little ones gain understanding and try to impose their will on a situation.

Nonetheless, I am aware of how fast these days are going, and I desperately want to communicate to her that in this house of loud and demanding others, that she is valuable and precious and so, so loved…and that it’s okay for her requests of undivided attention – that merely require me looking at her and nobody else for a few minutes – to be heeded with the same seriousness as if they were requests for more tangible needs.

So we sit, and we smile, and we dance, and I let her wipe her spit covered hands on my face and get my hair tangled up in her fingers, and I remind myself of how quickly these days are going and how much I will miss them when they’re gone.