i love you all year through little zu

i've been thinking a lot the past few days how much i love this toddler stage.

i love how much zu's personality shows now -- all the little things she does, like dancing at dinner time in her high chair (and we all dance along of course), spinning in circles just to make herself dizzy, climbing up in my lap demanding i read "i love you all year through" the hundredth time.

high fives, her "amazement" sounds (ohh, oh wow), even her ridiculous tantrums when i clip her fingernails--always followed by giggling when i'm done.

i'm amazed at how quickly she learns right now--she sees daddy pat his belly and she pats her belly, i show her how to feed a babydoll and she feeds a babydoll (and her lambys too now). i love how she goes nuts at the sign of any dog anywhere; how we can't walk past a stuffed animal without her wanting to hug it; how she immediately befriends other children at the park

it's hard too--saying "no" a billion times knowing it probably won't stick til the hundred-billionth; the separation anxiety she goes through on days that i work (she knows too--she wakes up early those days and cuddles with me in bed before work). her boundless energy and my not-so boundless energy.

even then, i can't help but feel so incredibly lucky. i don't just have a kid, i have this amazingly awesome kid--a total flirt star-of-the-show, the "busiest baby i've ever seen" (according to my parents), crazy-sweet girl. it amazes me that out of bryan and my marriage came this little vivacious one-of-a-kind soul.