My life is pretty organized.  Tidy piles stacked in drawers, bits contained by a medley of containers or my latest obsession, a weck jar.  A weck jar makes everything better.  And you can usually find just about anything tucked away neatly ’round here.  But upstairs in my head, the treasure trove of items that rumble about, well that’s a completely different story.  It bears an odd resemblance to my friend, Kacey’s, room in college.  Sh** everywhere.  But if you came to Kace looking for the black dress, specifically the one she wore on her date with with the “amazing accent guy”, she would know exactly where it was.  Under the mound of bedding not on her bed.

This past week I’ve been sifting through my own mounds (well, maybe we should just call them piles).  I’ve been digging for the little treasures buried deep that may have been forgotten along the way.  I know there is gold there, little nuggets of happiness that I don’t ever want to forget.  So many things I want to be able to tell Isla about someday.  I sift through the pictures, mainly from her birthday, and take note of how incredibly amazing this past year has been.  I see the milestones unfold here, shiny tokens laid out for me to make my time stamp on.  And I then realize the metamorphosis of becoming one has been just that.  A metamorphosis.

There’s always something new to discover, for both of us.  A fascination with open, close, in, out rocked her world at some point and continues on.  As does the ball (her first word) and her absolute obsession with her cousin, Aubrey.  Girlfriend is in love!

There was a time she gave kisses to us freely, open mouthed, gently leaning in with a smile.  Now they are reserved for special moments.  Except if you’re a stuffed animal, which is an open invitation for a full-on Isla make-out session.

Mimi stealing her “Mimi Kisses”

Nice try, Papi.

Theres a blurred line that marks when a cradled baby in my arms turned to hip-slung baby turned to legs-grasping securely around me.  Oh to hold and be held.

And if you’re really lucky, there’ll be a twirl of your hair and a good thumb suck – which means you get nuzzled on.  Nugget of happiness found.

Girlfriend LOVES her Aunt Shan.  And her Aunt Shan’s hair.  But, seriously, who doesn’t?!

At some point she outgrew the sink-turned-bath, but we kept her in it anyway.  It took a run-in with a blue bath mat at Ikea to give us the nudge to crash the big girls bath.  It was an impulse buy and just like that, new land for exploration was discovered.  An icing-covered Isla-girl in a bath, it’s pretty sweet.

And there was our sacred post-bath ritual, which has now become a naked crawl race to anything that catches her eye.  A fast swish of the hips and an excited whisper-chant of unrecognizable babble along the way.  Lotion and massages quickly took their backseat, bedtime really makes for a better playtime.

Mr. Lion from her Gran.  She’s hooked.

And there are the morsels that are still front and center.  Like the way she clucks to say hello.  Insert key into back door, dad walks in, Isla sits straight up, grinning with a “cluck, cluck!” Which is always echoed right back.  She does say “hi”, loves to say it actually.  Waves, blows kisses.  But cluck, cluck, it’s a dad-comes-home-from-work kinda thing.  Daddy’s girl in the making.

At night when all is still, I lay her little body against me, softly rocking as she takes her bottle.  So many scattered thoughts I sift through, letting the golden nuggets surface gradually as the rest settles around us.  I study her every feature, just as I had for the first time only one year ago.  I sing her the lullaby my mom used to sing to me growing up and once more kiss my Isla-girl goodnight.  My piles, they continue to grow, uncontained and running wild.  But always right in their place.

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Suggested Listening:  All My Days  |  Alexi Murdoch