Lately Rosie’s vocabulary has started to take off like a rocket, which has been nothing but great for our relationship and how we are able to communicate with each other.  A few days ago she had been fussing off and on for about ten minutes and following me around clinging to my legs when finally I stopped and looked at her and said, “Listen, baby girl.  If you want me to pick you up, this fussing isn’t going to cut it.  You need to say ‘Up.’”  And she looked right at me, swung her arms above her head and clear as a bell said “UP.”

Now that’s what I’m she’s talking about.

Her walking has accelerated, too. In fact, it’s not so much a walk as it is a quick-stumble-toddle-run. L says “it’s like everywhere she goes is down a hill.”  Which is true.  Rarely does she seem bothered by a spill (which is good, seeing as how they are frequent), and all stools and ottomans have been stored away due to Rosie’s irrepressible urge to swing a leg up and hoist herself up to precarious heights. The word ‘fearless’ has been tossed around a few times, which makes me simultaneously proud and terrified for the future.  But then, that’s pretty much a sum up parenting as a whole.

At her Mecca.

The house is a perpetual sty, littered with plastic toys and raisins, and any attempts to clean while Rosie is awake are comical mishaps of the floor-to-shelf-right-back-to-floor variety. Every object she chooses to play with/bang the floor with/make out with is awarded great devotion for the time it is allotted and then once she is done she discards said object with great gusto, flinging it away as if to say “I have no need of you anymore.  BEGONE.”  Which is probably why Noah has taken to affectionately calling her “Rosie Mess.”

Amid the detritus.

Zest for life. ZEST. That’s what this girl has, and she’s got it in spades. She’s a kick in the pants.  She’ll keep you on your toes. She makes you laugh from your belly.  She lives life with energy and exuberance and zeal and a light so bright that it almost hurts my eyes to look at it.

Shine on, shining girl.  Shine on.

Yay for dancing from racher on Vimeo.