Teeth

With the loss of her two front teeth, a strange thing happened. My little girl somehow became a lot older. Or maybe I am just finally able to accept that she is not a toddler or even a pre-schooler. It is amazing how quickly she went from this:

to this:

She is spunky and thoughtful and has such interesting things to say. She is also full of drama. Oh, the drama! The other day she started singing a song that went something like, "Oh, I wish my mom would understand meeee, I wish she understood! But I guess I should just give uuuuuuuuuuup. Because she doesn't. But I wish she would listen to meeeeeeee." It went on for awhile, but that was basically it. I guess I'm a mean mom who doesn't understand her, because I make her do chores. She has to vacuum under the table after dinner every night, and one day I asked her to do it again, because she had missed half of the mess. She raised her eyes skyward and said, "You're never satisfied by what I do for you!" Isaac overheard her and just about died laughing.
Anyway, back to the subject of teeth (because that's what I was talking about, right?), Henry, at nine months finally cut his first tooth. I'm proud of him for waiting so long. I was worried that it would mean he would suddenly cut six at once, but it's been about a month (since he turns ten months tomorrow!) and he still just has the one.You can't actually see the tooth in this picture, but you can see his little wrinkle- nosed smile, which is one of the cutest things ever. I can't not smile back at him.

He is a complete darling, without any apparent fear of strangers, and possessing a happy, relaxed attitude. I'm pretty guaranteed a smile if I tickle under his chin, and if someone in the room laughs, he'll probably laugh, too. You know, watching Lizzy learning and growing, eating new foods, beginning to sit up, crawl, take first steps ... those were some of the most exciting and rewarding moments of my life. I didn't know that it would be like that for each child. Henry, my fourth child, has been crawling for a few weeks now, and his first little shuffles were every bit as exhilarating as Lizzy's were. I feel like my world just keeps expanding. I would not trade being a mother to these four loves for anything.