18 months old.

Mila reached the 1 1/2 years-old marker last Wednesday. I'm hesitant to describe her--for starters, there's so many layers to her personality across different situations. Sometimes she shyly clings to me and other times she is very much an extrovert, waving to strangers and eating up attention. Sometimes she has a short fuse and her emotions are delicately maneuvered around, and then she looks up at me with those huge sparkling eyes. Smiling eyes. There's that determined set to her mouth when she's concentrating, the furrow in her brow. The way she frantically calls out Mamamamamama from the backseat of the car when getting tired. She toddled around the living room last Sunday while I tried to catch a few more minutes of precious sleep until I felt a little hand patting my side of the bed. Letting me know she wanted up. Then she laid quietly on the pillow next to me, softly chuckling at her little finger puppet book while I suddenly forgot how tired I was and just stared in amazement at this miracle. Her. I made her. And she's me, she's Steve, but she's also her own person.

Which brings me to this: she's still coming into her own, and I want to give her space to do exactly that. Be her own person. No labels. How could I sum her up neatly anyway? I can only describe the experience of raising her. And I do know that when I look at my daughter I see God. This isn't only what being a parent is all about, it's what life is all about.