All By Myself

Oh my God you guys, I can't hardly handle it any more -- Cupcake is growing so fast now, and doing so much on her own, that as soon as she gets a job and learns to work the microwave, I'm going to be totally obsolete. Seriously. Don't laugh. She can already almost reach the freezer door, and it's not like heating up chicken nuggets and easy-mac and a single-serving pack of frozen vegetables is hard or anything. If I can manage it, I know she can:

This week we started doing two things that are either awesome or terrifying, I'm not sure which. Or maybe they are both at once -- as you might have noticed, I am having trouble keeping up these days. I'm like the Betamax of parents or something. First, she started climbing onto and off of her rocking horse all by herself*. I mean, completely unassisted. She just throws her leg on over and then gets all excited and starts making noise and getting our attention and being all, "Look, Ma! No hands!"

And a die a little bit more inside because my baby isn't a baby any more, and can I please have a puppy? No? Okay, then, pass the Ben & Jerry's.

The other thing is, all of the sudden she is all "Look at me! Look at me! Look, mommy! Daddy, look! Look at me!" and then repeating it forever and ever, ad infinitum, if we don't drop everything right then and there and tell her how super fabulous she is. I don't know where kids learn this behavior. Which, she totally is, of course, but if we keep reminding her she's going to get a big head or something:

This part definitely scares the ever-loving crap out of me, because already she reminds me so much of my cousin Jason, he of the famous last words "Hey guys! Watch this!" Part merperson. Fearless. Thrill-seeking. Unbelievably cute. Smart and funny and everybody loves her. The complete opposite of needy, nerdy, neurotic me.

* On further review, it appears I claimed she got on the rocking horse by herself before. I forgot about that. But I maintain that this is still news because this is a new picture. Plus the whole "look mommy" thing is new. So suck it.