Turned All the Way Up to Eleven

Tootsie is on the cusp of turning one year old, on the cusp of walking and talking and ditching the breast and the bottle.  She is on the cusp of beyond babyhood.  I mused on her sweet uncalloused feet last night, respecting how little time of tenderness remains.

This month of her almost-oneness, the month when, a year ago, our lives went topsy turvy, has been emotional.  I can easily recall planning for the upcoming year at work, packing for travel, unpacking at the new house, and enjoying pregnancy.  Summer feels like Boston.  It feels like the hospital.  It feels like uncertainty and anything can happen.  It also feels like family, like love, like hope and excitement.

Tootsie is busy, busy, busy.  We took her on her first airplane ride since coming home from Boston, to Iowa to visit Husband's father.  We spent much of the weekend in the hospice house with family, Tootsie providing distractions and entertainment, cruising from chair to coffee table, babbling and growling and cackling with laughter at her sisters.  Life continues, we all nodded, as the seventeen-year cicadas swarming in the trees outside provided a fervent symphony.

She eats curried chicken salad, apples, diced grapes, and even Baked Lays potato chips (benefit of a trip to Subway with her babysitter) with her sharp little teeth, including new fangs on top.  She loves swimming, soccer balls (gooooooaaaaaaaaallll!), toys with microphones, and rocks.  She sings along.  She makes noises like an elephant.  She loves her baby cousins.

As always, she grins and smiles and laughs far more than she ever complains.  She's been ours for almost a year.  We can hardly remember life without her.