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Today, Clara Jane turns 16 months old. In exactly 10 minutes, it will be exactly 16 months since my belly was slashed and I had a human being ripped from it. Meaning, at this exact moment 16 months ago, I was sadly passed the point of extreme elation brought on by the C-section drugs and the holy terror of HOLY SHIT!!! I CAN'T BREATHE AND THEY'RE ABOUT TO SLASH MY BELLY AND YANK A PERSON OUT OF IT!!! A PERSON WHO'S GOING TO BE REALLY FUCKING PISSED OFF!!!!

So it only seems fitting that something clicked in my child's head today. I think it happened shortly after her morning nap, while she was lying in her crib, quietly contemplating life ... or standing in her crib, shrieking while slamming her stuffed elephant against the bars as hard as she could. During this time of quiet contemplation/elephant abuse, she must have said, "Clara "Me" Jane, you are 16 months old now. Get off your knees, already!"

Not ten minutes after I got her out of her crib, I looked up and said, "My lord, there's a midget in my house running towards me! No, wait - that's my child. Walking. On her own. And more than two steps at a time!" She toddled the five feet from the kitchen to my desk in the dining room. She threw a ball across the kitchen, then chased it. Then she nudged the ball across the kitchen with her foot, following it. Then she used her little rocking chair to attempt to climb onto the top of the dining room table because you can make the mountain goat walk upright, but you'll never stop the mountain goat from climbing the furniture. Never.

In the course of calling everyone related to me to tell them the good news, I spoke with my grandpa Chuck, a man of few words (but most of them are humorous and/or absurd). "Good thing," he said. "I looked at buying her an electric wheelchair yesterday. Guess I don't have to now." Damn straight, Chuck.

All of this walking business has got me a bit nostalgic. I've been terrible at keeping a baby book for Clara Jane. I figure, this blog is her baby book. But I know there's a lot of stuff - the little day-to-day things - that have already gotten lost in the cracks of my memory. So I thought that I would make a list here of things I don't want to forget, and I want her to know about someday:

• When she was really tiny, she would jerk her arms around all willy-nill. B. and I likened it to kung-fu fighting. Occasionally, we'd sing the song to her.
• She spent almost every morning of the first three months of her life snoozing in her baby carrier on the counter at Olivette Diner while I spent an hour or two drowning my post-partum depression in cup after cup of coffee while shooting the shit with the old guys who hung out there. Once, they offered me a bunch of breastfeeding advice.
• Walking around Whole Foods with her cuddled against me in her Baby Bjorn, intently watching all the produce when she happened to be awake.
• The way her left eye kept wanting to cross all the time.
• How cranky she'd get if the house was quiet, and how really loud music always soothed her. Such a mama's girl.
• The magical way she had of not just spitting up on me, but always managing to spit up down the neckline of my shirt onto my boobs. I know she didn't want to eat from them but Jesus, she didn't have to puke on them all the damn time. I got the message loud and clear without the vomit, thankyouverymuch.
• Leaves blowing on the trees were the most fascinating things in the world. We would lie on the bed, looking out the window at the trees, and I would recite the lyrics to "What a Wonderful World". Not so much for her benefit, but to remind myself.

There are so many more things, and the list of forgotten bits will just get bigger as she gets older. We'll forget more than we remember. It's only been seven months, but I can barely remember what it was like when she couldn't crawl to me. Soon, I won't be able to remember the sound of her hands and knees slapping the floor, and the wiggle of that diapered butt and she scoots across the house.