What can V do?

My daughter has been showing me some real love! The kind where she will put her arms around me and hug me or kiss my nose. Same toward my husband. He said he was giving her a bath and she stands in her bath now and when she turned she was face to face with him so his nose was showered in kisses.
I melt and die every time her tiny arms go around especially in the mornings when she sits up looks at me and then jumps from crib to bed (no, she is not acrobatic. The crib is a side car) and then topples on my belly and finds a position actually comfy for us both.

She can say: dada which according to her is the word we use to call someone who has left the room.
Mama, of course. Throw. Cold. Hot. Tree. Meow. Bowwow. Baba for baby. Kick. Tata. Bye.
More.

She will stand at the edge of the bathroom door and say no, no before I can say no, don't come in.
She will be doing things and will say, oh no. Or sometimes, all right.

Her voice is probably the most amazing sound in this world. When we pass the hallway photos she says Mama and points at my picture.

She gets so excited when I turn on the laptop because of course it must be to play her rhymes for her. She knows to clap her hands when I sing if you are happy and you know. She knows to stamp her feet to tha thay dhi thay.

She loves to bring people random things once she has decided she likes them. If I sit on the single sofa she will bring me some 20 things and drop them on my lap and I am not to put any down till its okay with her.

She loves biscuits and when I offer her the tin she will look at me and say one? And I say yes, one and she will pick a handful of biscuits and grin at me quite evil like! And she is okay when I take it back.

She will say pow when we are putting on clothes and she has to bring her hand through the sleeve. A taught her this. We push our hand through and when it comes out we say pow.
A taught her the different animal sounds. So for donkey she brays pitifully. For cow a moo is enthusiastic. Dog we learned long ago. Cat is the favorite and can be meow or maoo.


She loves our friends and has favorites. Once she really likes someone then we are disgustingly abandoned.
She loves most foods and accepts some of the not so delicious ones with a stoic face but if she really hates it they will be "throoow"

I have started working but part time. We are not ready to send her to day care yet. I go from afternoons and because she is a night owl she is still up when I am back which is really awesome.
I always whined about this but now that I am actually working I am really glad not to go full time. More than glad, just relieved and grateful that I can afford to not go.

Vacation

I am on the tail end of a long, super long, read two months long vacation that ends in two day. So big feelings.
I bought a relatively calm baby with me here and now I am leaving with some kind of hybrid of energy fueled, tantrum toting, non napping version. Husband who did not come on said vacation will be meeting this new baby soon.

So what happened?

I dont know, I suppose a combination of growing and being exposed to less strict caregivers like my mother who will relent in less than ten minutes and ask, Shall I give her some milk?

Milk: V drinks one big bottle before sleeping at night. She is a poor, poor sleeper. She is so clingy and will only sleep with me or Amma. She needs a hand hovering near her so that each time she gets night terrors or wakes up the hand must pat her bum or grab her hand. She usually sleeps one long bout of 5 hours and then asks for milk. In between we gave her water and she accepted for a while, but now that is an absolute no no and somehow it has ended in a no water strike. So now there is every day a struggle to take that straw cup. Then of course she learned tricks with it. To blow bubbles into the cup. To drink some and then spit it out. To drink some and let it slowly trickle down from her mouth drenching her clothes.
The ped had asked us to stop night feeds. I dont understand how people do this. I think it requires an iron resolve, one I am clearly lacking. Plus it isnt like I am the nicest person in the middle of the night. The cows milk also makes her constipated so I have continued to give her formula for some night feeds which is worrying on its own.
I think I just am beginning to realize how big "worrying" is a factor in parenting. I think I need to find a an outlet or some kind of reasoning to tone it down. Its not like I am actively worrying as in telling everyone, pondering on it. This is more of a checklist worry always in the back of mind. If I can cut one worry off I feel immensely successful.

Nap: I dont know if she is dropping a nap or what the new agenda is. Some days two naps are accomplished and on some she will fight you tooth and bone. Like today. She explored all the cupboards in the bedroom, pulled out drawers, threw down clothes from the bed. I dont mind the exploring because its unreasonable to not have a safe baby space and then keep saying no to her. But the clothes throwing- nah.
Anyway post all that she drank a milk bottle and then proceeded to do some more running around. Meanwhile I read on how you are to put baby down awake and let them drift off to sleep. I felt murderous.
She didnt nap. Is currently very cranky.
My mother, "She wont always be like this? She will nap and go down without a fight."
Me, " When?"
Her, " After 2 maybe.."

That wont do.

Food: The baby I brought here could 80% self feed. Now she is mostly fed.
I didnt have the fight in me to tell Amma no. I mean I did a few times but she won because all the travelling etc here to India, and back, had made V thin. She had lost maybe a pound or so. And then the feeding thing caught on. I still try to get her to eat breakfast alone. The deal is she eats. she likes food, but once she is done she throws the rest down. Somehow Amma doesnt understand that she is done. Its her being a baby apparently. And so rhymes, books, knick knacks come out and the rest is given.

Well I guess I will handle the rest when I am back.