And, by the way, just 6 days late:

Holy shit, you're like 9 months already

(a letter to my daughter)

So I know it's trite to say "It seems like just yesterday" and it doesn't seem like just yesterday - but in the blur of 9 months of diapers and sleeplessness, of vomiting and crying and learning to balance your needs with your siblings needs, in a summer of trying to keep quiet enough that your father can work, and those other months with school and schedules and trying to bend your will to the almighty nap, my dear, sweet HoneyBadger, it seems like a dream stuck inside of a moment I glimpsed just a few hours ago. . .  the moment of your birth seems both so close and yet so far away and me, I feel like I'm in some sort of final episode of Star Trek with a space-time continuum issue where you are at once not yet a person and a newborn and this big, opinionated child, ripping up the New Yorker as you chirp at my feet. 

You. are. amazing..  Fun and sweet and saucy.  And trouble.  I'm afraid to blink again and find you two and a whirlwind of determination and spunk. 

You're crawling and standing and cruising.  You're saying "Mama" in the middle of the night when you want my attention (and don't want to be alone!).  You're into everything.  If it's on the floor, it's in your mouth.  If it's in your mouth you swallow it and if you can't, you cast it aside and move on to new adventures with little more than a shrug. 

You are MonkeyMoo and The Budge's biggest fan.  When they walk into the room, you light up.  When they squeal in your face, you light up more.  When they shove you down, sit on you, or somehow topple you so you land on your head, you scream as though you've just encountered the greatest of tragedies.  They've gone back to school and now you crawl around the house during the day - I think you're looking for them. When you wake from your afternoon nap and they are home - you are delighted. 

Sweet girl - you're exactly what we were looking for through that tough journey to you.  Thank you for coming to us.  Thank you for having the tenacity to stick with us.  Here's to awesomeness, my Ninja Gingah. Now let's go cook dinner.