Today is Claire’s 11 month birthday and I remember when we first took her for a visit to daycare in late spring. One teacher said “oh, look how small she is! I don’t ever remember my daughter this young.” And I just smiled because I knew I would never ever forget that small little bundle of smiles in my arms, even though now it’s hard to imagine her being anything other than she is now. Claire now has six teeth that she likes to grind together just to hear her mother and me shriek and grab our ears as if someone had just scraped their fingernails down a relatively large chalkboard. Donna is afraid that those teeth are going to be crooked, and even though I know how much I may pay for braces some day, baby teeth aren’t as important as big girl teeth. So now she runs around and chases the dog and laughs. Of course, she still holds onto things as she hobbles around, but just recently Claire started pushing around a baby shopping cart at daycare. Now it’s exciting to see her mobile on her own, but I wonder what her future will hold. I don’t know what’s better, her pushing the baby shopping cart, or diving head first from a cart onto the aisle at Super Target. Even though my wife freaked, I bet she’s proud of the single flip like something out of the Baby Olympics. Maybe Claire’s just prepping for a career in swimming as the next Amanda Beard.