Big firsts

This past week was a big week of firsts for one little girl. Although not exactly the week of her very first steps (we've been thinking "this is it!" for a while now...), I think this is the first week she discovered for herself that walking was actually fun. 


On Monday we were at our Kindermusik class, and the teacher was demonstrating how bubbles can be used to create a peaceful atmosphere (rather than just contributing to more chaos). She had the lights low and some quiet music on and was blowing bubbles around the room for all the babies when Cassidy almost unthinkingly took to her feet, arms raised in the air, big smile on her face, following the bubbles around the room. 


Whether it was music class, this week's visit from grandpa, the warm weather letting us know spring is really here, or something else entirely, some little switch in Cassidy's mind has flipped - she is ready to walk. The rest of the week we would catch her suddenly taking to her feet with her funny little bow-legged baby walk...

Another first for the week...Cassidy's first haircut! Her hair has been hanging shaggily into her eyes for some time now, but it wasn't until yesterday that I got around to actually doing anything about it. I took her to a special "baby salon", where she got to sit in a car-shaped hair cutting chair and watch an Elmo DVD in a room filled with pictures of other happily hair-cut babies and other oddities like a mini table-top ferris wheel covered in lights. As soon as she was put into the chair and wrapped in a tiny haircutting smock, she was in "the zone". Totally captivated by all of the interesting things in her new environment, she peacefully allowed the hairstylist to trim up those fuzzy baby locks into a cute little bob. I wish I could have captured it on camera, but I know that had I brought out the camera the peaceful spell would have immediately been broken. Anyway, she did get a special certificate at the end with her picture and a lock of hair in a little ziploc baggie. So we do have some memento of the occasion.

We did get some pictures of her new "big girl" haircut once we got back to nai nai and bop's house:

It's funny how, almost more than walking, the new haircut is what really makes her seem like a little girl now. I kept looking over at her yesterday, with her neatly trimmed bangs and pink bow, and catching glimpses of "the girl", who up until now has mostly just been known to us as "the baby".