We took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday and went for a family walk along the river.  Delaney squealed the entire time (she LOVES going on walks), and Murphy had fun checking out all of the ducks..

From day one, Delaney has been such a sweet, laid back little girl.  As I’ve mentioned before on the blog, she’s okay with whatever we have her doing.  As long as she gets the sleep and food she needs, she’s up for anything.  The first ten months of parenting has been a breeze.

And then we entered the eleventh month.  Once Delaney started crawling and realized that she had control what she was doing, she started testing her independence with every situation.  We suddenly saw an attitude appear out of nowhere this past week – and it surprised us!

I’ve actually been concerned in the past that Delaney wouldn’t stand up for herself and would get walked over in life because she was so easy going.  But it looks like she does have a fire inside of her after all.  And she’s not ashamed to show it!

In fact, Matt said to me this morning, “Babe, it’s a shame that aliens kidnapped our sweet daughter and replaced her with Diana Ross.  We now have a diva in the house.”

She was banging on my computer keyboard and started screaming with frustration when I moved her hands away.  She was happily playing on the floor and started screaming with frustration when Matt picked her up for a kiss.  She was trying to stand by pulling herself up on the couch and started screaming with frustration when she would fall.  She was waiting for us to read her nightly bedtime books and started screaming with frustration when it took us too long to get started.

Just when we were getting too cocky as parents because our child was extremely well behaved, sweet, cuddly and chill, this attitude appeared out of nowhere.

At least her frustrated face is so darn cute.  (And, of course, us snickering at her annoyed expression just made her scream with frustration even more.)

It’s 20 degrees outside, and it doesn’t seem much warmer than that in Delaney’s room. So she’s bunking with us tonight. What a sweet face to sleep next to all night!

Sick mommy + sleepy baby = lots of cuddling time

Delaney loves attention, and Murphy is a reliable audience.  Here’s how the daily dance goes at our house:

Delaney rocks out in her bouncy seat. Then she pauses to make sure Murphy is still watching.

Then she squeals and thrashes about some more.  Then she pauses to make sure Murphy is watching.

Then she bounces some more and flails her hands.  Then she pauses to make sure Murphy is watching.

And the beat goes on…

This is the only time Murphy can relax these days – when Delaney is contained in the Pack ‘n Play. Now that she’s very mobile and very fast, she is constantly chasing him to pull his tail and grab his feet!

I received this photo from the daycare this morning. Clearly the ladies were amused at our groggy girl who isn’t a morning person!