on the move!

I wrote this a few weeks ago and just noticed I never posted it:

So because my daughter is a genius and very advanced for her age and will probably graduate from Princeton when she's ten, it wasn't a surprise when she started sitting up at 5 months, scooting around shortly thereafter, and pulling herself up at 7 and a half months. She didn't crawl, but I figured she was just gearing up to start walking at a very early age, skipping the crawling altogether.
Well. Newsflash. Tessa tried crawling yesterday. She did it a couple times, put a few feet under her belt before packing up and heading to bed. This morning, she is crawling all over the place, and quick. Crawling anywhere she sees. It's like a whole new world of experiences has opened up for her. It's great! She crawls to the shelf and pulls the books off, crawls to the couch, pulls herself up, and pulls my files onto the floor, yanks my computer cord and pulls it out of the computer, crawls to the fireplace and pulls up on the sharp stone ledge, grabbing handfuls of wood and ash in the process. She crawls to the trash and pulls it over. The laundry bin. The stool. The printer.
Good lord. I was so enjoying sitting and playing with her. Now it's going to be chasing her while she plays. It means constant cleaning so she doesn't eat every little speck in sight, it means covering all sharp edges, it means never letting her out of my sight. I was so, so content with the stationary baby. But the stationary baby has little left to explore, and will eventually branch out. Such is life. Now, what ELSE this means is that the more she moves, the more tired out she'll get. I guess each stage has its challenges and its benefits.
Regardless, having a baby is so much fun, and the most wonderful fulfilling thing in the world. I love watching the excitement and wonder with which she sees everything. We could learn a lot of lessons from babies. Everything can be looked at in a new light, change is constant, life is exciting, meeting new people is a good thing, be content with what you have, smile all the time and other people will smile too... It is cheezy but it's true. This child has turned my life around. Her wonder is my wonder. When life is good, I have Tessa. When all else fails, I have Tessa.