So now we're in the thick of it-- Linh has started back to work full-time, we've started taking the little monkey to daycare, Aivy started teething, and she has begun drinking formula as her primary source of nutrition (in addition to the semi-solid food that we give her twice a day).
All this means that even though we thought we had just mastered parenting by discovering ways to trick Aivy into sleeping through the night and enjoying some quality time as a couple by doing such self-indulgent things like watching movies together, we have to start all over.
Teething has made Aivy a bit cranky and she no longer sleeps through the night. Her little bowels can't seem to handle the high iron content of her formula. And she has developed the sort of separation anxiety that makes her very clingy when we try to drop her off at daycare.
But despite all these new challenges, Aivy remains as ugly as ever.
And every day I fall more and more in love with her as she develops into this new little person...
with her own personality...
her own curiosity and interests...
and her own voice.
And let me tell you, that voice is incredibly loud. But I love it.
She's more that I ever imagined. And let me tell you, before becoming a dad I had a very low tolerance level for that kind of schmaltzy, trite, Hallmark greeting card crap. But now I find myself spouting it all the time.
And when I say I love her more than anything in the world, I mean it.
