Emma steps

Last week Emma took a few good steps, on a couple different occasions. Yesterday she took a few more. She will also walk with only one of my hands, rather than two. Sometimes she gets in a hurry and reaches up for my other one, and she looks at me with this look like, come one, we have to go. All these firsts, so exciting. But they also bring an end to something, they replace the way you have been doing it. So when she walks, there will be one last time when she needs me to help her. And when she eats by herself with a spoon, I'll give her one last bite. It's the way it must be, the design of life constitutes change, it happens all the time. Even the most miraculous design has some bittersweet points in it. This is the best time, she is so sweet, and concerned about people she knows, she wants to play with us and give us things and laugh with us. She wants us to follow her, to not walk away, to just be with her. It's innocence. It's a different love then you find other places, she doesn't have the emotional ability to understand why she loves, but she does. Obviously some of it is getting fed and cared for, but she is pretty attached too.

She is also playing with corn starch that spilled this morning.

Ahhh....the life of a baby.

Our backyard looks like a swamp, and the neighbor's tree had a big piece fall off. It rained all day yesterday, almost like Seattle! It will be nice when the sun comes out and it really dries up back there, and we can walk on the grass without sinking.

We are traveling to South Dakota this weekend. It will be fun. We are taking the van, so that should make it really comfortable. Now all I need is a tv in there, and I'll be set ;) Ok, maybe not, but it does feel long! I am going to splurge and get a couple magazines, that always makes it fun. I can't read in the car, but magazines don't bother me. It's not so much constant reading, more looking and flipping. It will be a nice long weekend, so we're excited.