Oh, my daughter.
It's been three months since she first came into this world; three months for me to begin to get to know her; three months for me to watch her blossom into her personality; three months for me to be enamored by that emerging personality.
I've always found it interesting that babies prove themselves independent creatures--their own persons--from their earliest of days. Straight from the womb, they have their own temperament. Mom and dad can influence it, help it, hinder it, encourage it or scourge it. But it is a temperament created all of its own.
So I've eagerly watched my little girl and tried to put my finger on this personality of hers. From her earliest days, we described her with the word "intense." In some parenting books I've read, they call it "high-needs" or (the kinder, gentler moniker) "spirited." When she was unhappy, she was really unhappy. When something aggravated her, it really aggravated her. When she was content, she was happy as a clam.
And now, as she grows and spends more and more time awake and alert, that still remains the case: When she's happy, she's giddy. When she's curious, she's so much so that she won't go to sleep (for hours and hours).
She has passion and feist that I can see already, a penchant for experiencing life deep down into her bones.
And while she still sometimes needs to be cuddled to sleep, when she's awake, she is no clingy baby. When she's awake, she doesn't want to be cradled like a baby; she wants to be sitting, standing, propped up to look around. She's happy to entertain herself for enough time for mama to have breakfast and get dressed and catch up on my morning emails. During that time, she just lays there and looks around, cooing and mesmerized by this world of hers.
I can already see an independent spirit budding in her, just waiting until her feet can take her places so that she can explore at will, rather than just sit and watch.
And so, my baby is growing. She is coming into her own, and I am in awe of it, every single day.
(And yes, that photo is actually of Clarie. It's taken this long for me to finally get some decent photos of her. But it was worth the wait wasn't it?)
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