My Cup of Tea.

This is my favorite. I've been talking all along about how excited I was to reach a point where parenting became interactive, creative, imaginative, rather than just a desperate attempt to fulfill someone else's basic human needs. That's still a big part of parenting, it always will be, but Adelyn and I have transcended the basics and moved on to developing an actual relationship. Mother, daughter. Friend, friend. Teacher, learner.

Right now I'm writing, and Adelyn is crawling around me. (She's still not proficient in the art of crawling--just skilled enough to shimmy her way around the floor with a combo of rolling, scooting, and pulling herself up to a standing position with whatever she can.) We just watched the Elmo Song on Youtube three times in a row. I sang along. She laughed. Before that we cracked up together at Adelyn's discovery that she could use me as a jungle gym. We watched a few minutes of Lord of the Rings. (Adelyn got bored.) We ate some apples and rice cereal. I took a few bites and she got irritated that I was stalling the food from entering her own mouth. We had a long talk, Adelyn doing her best to make sense of this new language and me imitating the hilarious sounds she's using to tell me how she feels. The monotony of parenting is gone. Adelyn is already filled with countless different emotions--her personality is starting to shine through.

It's all so much more my cup of tea, this seven-month-old thing. I feel like I have a purpose beyond food-giver, diaper-changer and nap enforcer.

And now Adelyn has managed to pull herself up to standing using the back of my T-shirt. She's loving it. So am I.