Let me tell you why I adore my daughter.

At ten-and-a-half months old Miss Tori amazes me every day.



She's all over the place. Since she learned to crawl about a month ago she's been unstoppable. The baby gates hold her in place, but just barely. She powers through any form of baracade that her daddy and I try to make. Stack of pillows? Ha! She's through it. Using her Jeep as a baracade? Ha! She crawls under it. Even the two-parent-human-style-baracade fails sometimes. Since this little one got mobile, she's realizes she has places to go.



She also knows she has plenty to say. Her range of vocalizations and noises is all over the place. This little girl makes me smile more than I ever have simply by discovering a new sound or jarble of words she can make. When she gets wound up she doesn't stop jabbering! What's adorable is that we think she might be saying "Mamamamamamamama" at this point, but I think I'm more impressed that yesterday she started rhyming words with "duck". I'm not sure if she fully intended to say duck, either - it's hard for me to tell at this stage if she's just making noises or if she's starting to try and say something. If she is, "Dada" won't be far behind.



Her little laugh is incredibly sweet. Her daddy and I love to make her laugh and giggle. Lately she's been squealing a little higher and quite a bit louder - and we love it. She loves being chased while she's crawling around - she'll turn around, see us behind her, giggle and squeak, and then take off again.

She's started nuzzling us. From our lap or from her arms, she'll just bow her head toward ours or toward our chests and lean it against us. Each time she does Josh and I melt. I think it's as close as she can get to hugging us right now. Like Josh said, it's awesome that she's got some way to show us affection at this point.

She tries new foods like a champ and we haven't seen her turn down anything to eat yet! I love it when Tori shares my sandwich with me while I'm home on lunch. It's fantastic to be able to get that time with her in the middle of the day. Tori is always finding new ways of being too cute for her own good, and spending my lunch with her allows me to recharge my batteries in the middle of my lunch day.

This afternoon when I came home she was napping. By the time I'd made my sandwich she had woken up. I took her from Josh and brought her to my lap. She looked up at me, smiled sweetly, and then laid her head on my chest. Adorable! We gave her a teething biscuit and she started a game she's picked up in the last week or so. She'll take a bite, then give it to Daddy. He'll thank her for it, give it back to her, and then she'll hold it to my mouth to take a bite - so I pretend to munch on it until she takes it back and takes a bite. She continues to share her biscuit with us until she's bored with it.

I could already tell as a baby she is going to be a sweet girl - now as the days continue she's just proving that more and more. I couldn't be more proud of this sweet, smart, and beautiful wonder!