There’s something wildly unfair about how quickly toddlers become little people. One minute Joni was this tiny, sleepy burrito who fit in my hand, and now she’s wobbling triumphantly across the living room like a drunken sailor. This past week she started walking for real, not the cautious “two steps then collapse into a parent” kind of walking, but determined exploration. Suddenly the house feels like a death trap with various corners and edges she could crack her head on.
And with walking has come personality in overdrive. She’s become coy in the funniest ways, tilting her head down dramatically when someone talks to her, peeking upward with this mischievous smirk like she’s fully aware she’s adorable and weaponizing it. She’s social now too, eager to wave at strangers, charm restaurant servers, and flirt shamelessly with anyone willing to acknowledge her existence. Yet five minutes later she’ll bury herself into my shoulder with this deeply cuddly little sigh that makes it impossible to move for fear of disturbing the moment.
Somehow, amid all the chaos of physician schedules, night shifts, dogs, dishes, and the endless laundry factory that accompanies children, we’ve stumbled into a genuinely wonderful routine. Joni sleeps like an absolute champion, which still feels less like parenting skill and more like winning some kind of biological lottery. Our evenings have rhythm now. Dinner, bath, books, cuddles, bed. There’s a comfort in the predictability that younger me would have found suspiciously domestic, but current me treasures deeply.
The most exciting part of all of this is watching her world suddenly widen. Walking changes everything. Before, life happened mostly where we placed her. Now she gets to decide. She can investigate corners, chase the dogs, carry objects from one completely inappropriate location to another. Every doorway is an adventure. Every room is a possibility. You can almost see the gears turning in her head as independence arrives one tiny step at a time.
And just as we’re getting used to this version of life, here comes another baby.
What’s strange is how different this feels from the first time around. With Joni, we documented everything. Every kick. Every app update comparing fetal size to obscure produce. Every tiny milestone got memorialized like we were historians preserving evidence for future civilizations. This time? I mostly just feel impatient. Not anxious. Not scared. Just overwhelmingly ready for her to arrive already. I want to meet her. I want to see who she is. I want to watch Joni become a big sister and see our family click into its final shape.
Well… mostly not anxious. Tonight may be testing that theory a little. It’s the night before we head to the hospital, and in a truly masterful display of poor planning, I somehow scheduled myself for a night shift. Emily is understandably a bit stressed since this is all happening earlier than expected, while much of our family support cavalry is still en route. Timing, as it turns out, remains mostly fictional no matter how many calendars two physicians own.
But even tonight, underneath the logistics and exhaustion and low-level panic, excitement wins. I can feel it sitting there quietly beneath everything else. We’re about to meet our second daughter. Our family is about to become complete. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, Joni will probably toddle into the hospital room with that shy little grin, completely unaware that her whole world is about to grow too.
