Almost 11 months ago...

Almost eleven months ago a little girl made her first appearance. Now Lyra is a miniature person in her own right. She has opinions, she has preferences, and she just keeps on growing. Here are some recent highlights:

• Her volume control now goes up to "11", not "10". You know how dogs respond to extremely high pitched sounds, as from a special whistle used by trainers? Well Lyra can now express herself to her parents in very much the same way: we just can't ignore it! Actually she is really trying hard to say words now and I had a bona fide conversation with her a couple of weeks ago. It was a very proud moment.
• One-handed cruising. Lyrusha can now stand up and totter about the edge of objects like a coffee table using only one hand for balance. She also has bruises and cuts on her face from the learning process but it's astonishing how quickly she went from an inanimate lump of (admittedly very cute) baby fat to a lean mean cruising machine.
• Two real teeth.
• Absolutely gorgeous blue eyes. They're really quite piercing in person.
• Two parents who truly cannot get enough of her. I was out of town a couple of times in the past few weeks and she literally changed between my departure and arrival back home a couple of days later.

So, my little girl, please keep on surprising us. I can only wonder what will happen before your first birthday :-)