Turning One!

My angel is turning 1!  In a little over two weeks this little bundle of yumminess is no longer new!  I forget how big she is... yesterday I was going through the "too big last winter put aside for this winter" box.  A little striped jumpsuit was admired by ga ga (grandma) and I, but I was concerned that it might be a little tight in the length...so we though we would just try it... the next time I was changing the angel I picked up the jumpsuit and lay it over her pleasantly round little tummy... and lo!  There was at least 4-5 inches of leg protruding beyond the foot of the suit.  I guess she is a little taller than she appears.... must be the optical illusion of finding someone I am actually looking down on (a novel experience!).
And she is growing up so fast... it seemed only last week she was laying helplessly, cooing mildly at the shadows on the ceiling... now she is pushing her little chair over to the bookshelf, standing on it, and pulling mummy's books off the higher shelves.  Today she turned on the TV - AND changed the channel!  Seems she prefers MASH to the current affairs shows...well, she is my daughter after all.
How strange it is to say that..."my daughter"... after 37 years of not having a daughter...of course I thought some miracle would happen and I would feel like a different person - a "mum" for heavens sake... aren't they a sort of different species?  The women who can suddenly get twice as much done in a day, whilst being endlessly patient, know how to do everything, and are always right?  When do I get to become that?  Its kind of like growing up - like the day you suddenly realise you are no longer growing up - you are a grown up... yet you don't feel any different!  Its sort of a ripped off feeling, like coming out of a day spa feeling stressed and grotty (someone got the mud-bath all wrong?)...And of course I don't feel ripped off about being a mum, not at all... its the thing I will always cherish most in my life... but I do feel that perhaps I should have morphed into a younger version of the golden girls or that partridge mum or something... my hair has gone grey but perhaps I need a short perm and a cardie and I will be let into the secret mum club...
Heavens-to-Betsy my little girl is turning 1!