I totally get this business about the baby of the family

In all the latest Greene news, Emily is being super cute these days. Now that she is almost finished with her antibiotic, she seems to be feeling back to her old chipper self. She is crawling so FAST. And getting.into.everything. There are definitely preferences for things she is not supposed to have. Garbage cans. Boxes of STH cds. Anything on the floor in Elijah and Mary's room. And what's funny is she starts crawling faster when she rounds the corner toward the bedrooms. I can hear her little knees pounding away on the floor. She laughs and laughs. I am starting to block off every room. What's also fun is that she stands up all the time and is just starting to cruise from the ottoman to the loveseat. Just this week she started saying mama. She now drinks from a cup independently.

So, all these things are great and fun and noteworthy. And at the same time remind me that she will be 1 in a month. I have had more than one conversation lately about moms feeling sad on their baby's(or young children's) birthday. For me, this emotion seems exceptionally strong because in most likelihood she will be our last. I don't want her to grow up. It's fun having a baby. Okay, it's also a lot of work. But. My point is that I am starting to get a lot more insight into birth order and how, as parents, we shape so much of our child's behavior because of our wants and desires.