I stopped counting.

Sometimes, Buggie, being a really good mama means not obsessing over your baby. It means letting her grow the way she was born to grow and be the girl she was born to be. It means ignoring the other people (some of whom aren't parents themselves and seem to have never actually interacted with a child) when they give their unsolicited advice, and sometimes even ignoring that doubting voice in the back of your head. Because at the end of the day, your baby was born out of love and feeds off your love. While it can be nice to document every day, or even just a day every now and then, it is so much better to just watch your baby and interact with her and let her help you and encourage her to try new things without interrupting those sweet moments with imaginary self-editing.

That being said, you have grown so much in the past few months and have really become such a little girl. Instead of panicking in those moments where you seem so big, I squeeze tightly the few moments where you still seem like a baby.

You walk, run, dance, "sneak", feed yourself with a fork and spoon, love on every animal, pretend to be a dog, know elephant and fish sounds, and so much more. People often comment on how tiny you are, but that's because they don't realize that you are only 13 months old!

Oh so, the other day you rolled your eyes at daddy and me. Let's cool that off for at least another decade okay? 

Summers in Phoenix are painfully hot, but you honestly don't seem to care one bit. You love to swim (and can swim to the surface by yourself!) and would probably spend all day in the sun if we let you, but we don't. We also get "monsoons" this time of year, which are just thunderstorms and duststorms combined. The other day it rained 2 inches in just a few hours and you spent the entire time dancing in the rain! Don't worry, it was still about 90 degrees out, so I wasn't worried about you getting sick. I love how much you love fresh air and being adventurous and hope that you stay like this forever.

I love you so much Buggie and can't wait to see how much more you grow and mature this summer.
Love love love,
mama

PS The whining...

let's not do that anymore, okay?