Day 18: 15 & 7

Today my daughter is 15 months old. She is growing up so fast. I can't believe how quickly she changes. A year ago, when my husband left for Iraq, she laid on the floor and laughed, but that was about it. I think she was rolling over, but barely.

Now, she is walking and attempting to run. She is starting to talk, although baby versions of "Dada," "moo," and "yes" are her only vocabulary so far. She can communicate much more than those two vocal words She signs dog, eat, milk, gorilla, more, finished, again, bird, flower, balloon, swim, change me/potty, and so much more with facial expressions and body language. She loves books and wants me to read to her all the time. She dances and has a sense of humor.

Lil Bit is quickly becoming, not quite so lil. She is getting teeth daily it seems. In a week, she'll be back in school, learning all sorts of new things without me. It is sweet and sad all at the same time. I'm still wishing I could just freeze her the way she is. She is just so adorable. I love that she loves to snuggle with me and lets me hug and kiss all over her chubby little cheeks.

I've had a rough time this week with all the moments her father is missing. Out of her 15 months, he has missed 1 for training and 11 and a half for a deployment. He visited with her for three weeks when she was ten months old, but even I barely recognize that little girl when I watch her on the video tapes. It breaks my heart to know how much he missed. Time marched on without him.

Another way time is moving quickly, 7 years ago today I met the man who became my husband. The night we met, I thought he was cute, a little crazy, and very nice, but never going to call me. Then he called, and I wondered where this was going to go with his being in the military and stationed five hours away.

He kept calling, and I realized he was kind of awesome. I didn't want to like him. But I fell in love with him anyways. Before I knew it, 18 mos. had passed, and he was asking me to marry him. Two states and seven years later, here we are getting ready to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. And end our third deployment (his 4th).

All I can say is time flies when you're having fun. And drags like hell while you're waiting to have fun!! I'm counting the hours, checking email neurotically, and frantically checking the army website over and over. I am hoping to get an army message pretty soon giving me the deets on his return. Every minute feels like an hour and an hour feels like a day, which is making this week so freakin' long!

I'm going to try to focus on the positive here. Seven years, we've been together and he still makes my breath catch and heart race. He still cares if I'm happy with what he made for dinner. I still try to fold his socks neatly and match them by the amount of wear and tear. And he'll be home very soon, but I wish sooner. Still quite an accomplishment, 7 years is a great start to the rest of our lives. Here's hoping to 50 more.

Day 78: Billy Goat Gruff

Do you remember the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff? Last night my daughter reminded me of the troll under the bridge. I've been gradually introducing her to adult table food. I still primarily feed her the healthy baby and toddler foods, but have given her a few tastes of more fun fare.

Last night, I gave her a few bites of pizza. I cut them up into tiny fist size pieces and sat down in the living room. I had my plate and hers on my coffee table. The top of our coffee table lifts up to table height which is nice for movie nights and to keep things out of the grasp of Lil Bit.

I sat on the couch and she stood next to me, half playing and half eating. Eventually she crawled underneath the table and sat rocking back and forth, venturing out a tiny fist to grab another bite every so often. She sat under the table happily chomping on pizza, signing please and more when she was ready for the next piece and singing random baby songs.

It was so funny and cute. She was like an adorable little troll snatching food and giving me her little two-toothed, nose crinkled grin. She just gets cuter and cuter each day. Two days in to this summer vacation and I can already tell that I am not going to want to go back to work next fall.

Later, we Skyped with Grandma and Grandpa. She blew kisses and showed off her new sign "balloon" which she does her own way, but is very cute. She says, "ba ba ba" and blows into her hands and then acts like she's throwing kisses. It isn't quite right, but pretty good for just learning it in the past 24 hours or so. We even got her walking and dancing.

She is just changing so fast and learning so quickly. Every day I can see her learn something new. Even after struggling with insomnia last night, I got up this morning when she started playing in her crib rather than waiting for her to start fussing. I raced into her room just so I could see what new amazing thing we would do together today.

I found out that she is just as bad as the dog when it comes to impatience. She has learned when I start putting on my sneakers that we're going for a walk. Between the dog's whining and the baby's crying, I am going to have to sneak walk preparations from now on and spring from the bedroom ready to go. We go for a run for 30 minutes and a walk for 30 and she still cries when we come inside. I have a feeling she is going to be a daddy's girl who loves the outdoors. She still gets really hot really fast, so if we're not inside by ten, it is too hot for us.

Yesterday, I was reading her a story I Love You Through and Through and one page reads, "I love your ears . . . and your nose." She grabbed her ears while I read that page without being prompted and did it again while we were skyping with my in-laws. She is just such a sponge and I am having SO MUCH fun with her. I almost don't even want to take time out do anything else.

Speaking of which, she just woke up from her nap. Time to go!

We played all day. And I caught her on tape, giggling at me playing with the dog. She was laughing so hard that she had tears in her eyes. I can't wait to show that to her dad. I hope the rest of the summer goes this way, but I will do my best to contain my gushing in the blog about what an adorable baby Lil Bit is to a minimum, but she is freakin' awesome. Went down tonight with her favorite CD and a quick goodnight, no muss, no fuss. I swear there are days, she's magical.