Where did my little baby go?

It is no surprise to me that Nahanni is growing all the time and that this time seems to have passed so quickly - it is,however, astonishing the rate at which this seems to be happening. When I picked up her sleeping form from her swing last night I was struck by the weight of her, the length of her against me and it brought sharp, quick tears to my eye. Of course, baby time is the smallest segment of her life, the thing she willbe the least of and so it is doubly cruel how fast it goes. For some reason I want so badly to savour her smallness, her innocence, her baby essence before she becomes a little girl, but it is happening at such lightning speed I can't keep up. Adrian just emailed me a picture he took of Nahanni when we went to Salt Spring (8 weeks old) and she was entranced by the luggage tag on her car seat. I look at that baby and think 'Where did she go?' - she's grown so much since then. You can see it in her newly chubby cheeks, her chubby little belly and legs, in the fullness of her face. She talks constantly now, last night so loudly that she woke Ez up from a dead sleep. She laughs and coos and really is trying to tell stories and communicate; it's the most wonderful sound! She has also discovered herself in the mirrored toy (yet another toy from Pierce and Kate) in her crib - the tag no longer works, but her reflection does. She lies in there and chats away to herself, trying occasionally to roll over, using the slats of the crib for leverage. She has little patience in general for lying down though, she wants now to be up and looking around all the time. We had another day on BSG Wednesday (and 2 more next week, plus the next episode...) and she was again as good as gold - although we are getting fearful for the coming months when it won't be so easy to keep her locked up in a trailer all day long. She has been the most wonderful, brilliant baby, I constantly thank my lucky stars for her. Of course, every mother feels that way (and should) but additionally, the universe saw fit to give me a child who is very easy, patient and content. She is an amazing sleeper (touch wood - she slept until 10:00 am the other morning) and I can take her anywhere. My mom says that with all the trouble I had early on, I deserve such a good baby...I don't care why it happened, I'm just so grateful that it did. I love this child, ridiculously, expansively, ferociously. It is the best journey I've ever been on - but why does it have to go so damned fast??