she's on the move!

So my angel is up and walking... definitely, incontrovertibly, inarguably, undeniably a baby no more... its so terribly butterscotch caramel hot chocolate sweet!  After months of taking the odd unstable steps I think I had been lulled into a false sense of security that nothing would ever change and that I would still be calling out "good walking baby, you can do it!" at her high school graduation ceremony.  But no, in that inexorable way of babies, she has grown up.  Yesterday I arrived to pick her up from "school" and she saw me from the other end of the balcony and she was off... thankfully towards me (as opposed to today when I had to contend with the demoralising tantrums of her wanting to go and keep playing instead of coming home with me...)  She is no graceful ballerina yet, I will admit, she sort of rolls, lolls, from side to side like a boat in swell... "tottling" seems a very apt description I think.  She tottles... but now instead of needing to be semi-forced into it, she is loving it, and is off and on the go.  I know, I know... I already wonder why I was in a hurry to see her walk... I must admit that when I was trying to get dressed today and she managed to open the cupboard, take a out a wine glass and smash it dramatically upon the ground at her feet I did think wistfully of the slug-like floor bound days when I could put her down and know I could come back later and she would still, like yesterday's dirty socks, be exactly where she was left.
Every moment is so precious, every day brings such change, and each moment, once passed, can never be experienced again.  I am drinking them in as deeply as I can... these precious grains of gorgeousness, slipping constantly through my fingers.... but sparkling all the way.