I might complain from time to time about how quickly time passes between blog posts and next thing you know two weeks have gone by. This is as nothing compared to how fast time is moving for Siena, and to how suddenly things Siena does that we once celebrated and marveled at slip into the past of her evolving childhood.

“Haaaa-dah?” She doesn’t really do that any more. She rarely does the evil laugh that she learned from my goofy laugh. Before she could crawl, when I picked her up from day care she would see me coming into the room and sit there and start to fret: hands held up to the mouth in a state of worry; once I picked her up it was all smiles, feet kicking, and babbling. After she started crawling, she’d be sitting and see me come in, and then she’d flop forward and smack her hands on the floor and start turtling over to me, saying “aaaa” in a happy crescendo until she could get into my arms. Now that she’s walking, she’ll see me walk in the door, push her chair back (she’s usually sitting at a table having a late-afternoon snack), grab whatever food she can stuff into her little hands and mouth, say, “Da-deee,” run over to me, and give me a big hug.

These changes join countless earlier transitions, like the cute way she’d coo before she learned a few consonants, how she said “bye bye” before going to bed instead of “night night,” how she says recites the alphabet “A B cat!” These activities will persist in our memories (we hope), and–in limited form–in pictures, the infrequent video, and right here.

The redeeming aspect of having lost some of these moments is that they get replaced by entirely new moments. Siena can now answer differently for what all sorts of different animals say, including some really great roars for lions and tigers. She’s running all over the place (“full steam ahead” as described by day care). The way she very deliberately closes a book (grabs the back cover, forces it close against your own hand strength, and pushes on the back cover slightly to make sure it stays closed) to indicate she’s really ready for bed while you are reading to her is priceless.

I hope we’ll keep noticing and recording these little things, as they are the nuggets that make us laugh and smile in wonder.

Best of all is the full-on, arms-wrapped-around-your-neck, head-resting-on-your-shoulder hug. She doesn’t do it very often, and you don’t want to pass up the opportunity when she does. There’s something very vulnerable about it; something that stirs a nurturing and protective reaction that makes you just want to hold on forever right back, and you hope she realizes that which you cannot easily put into words and which she wouldn’t understand anyway.