Shouldn't I get a little more time to prepare for this whole 'growing up' thing?

Steve, on the phone yesterday as I was driving home:

Your daughter refuses to be held. She just wants to be left alone in her walker. I'm basically getting a big 'screw you' right now.

My mother-in-law, on the phone this morning:

Brigid does not want to be held at all. She wants nothing to do with me.

Me, last night, as she's trying to push off of me and out of my arms, pissed because I won't let her stand against the back of the couch:

THIS ISN'T FAIR!!! YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO BE THIS INDEPENDENT!!!

So, yeah...did I mention that Brigid is crawling now? She started doing it pretty consistently while we were on vacation, and while she has this weird, 'crawl on one knee while sticking the other leg out like a kick-stand and using that foot to push off every once in awhile' style of crawling (which I am not even close to explaining properly...it's just something you have to see...), she is now, officially, a baby on the move. Between the crawling and the walker, the kid has absolutely no need for us anymore. She wants to be on her own, without being bothered by any of those pesky parental figures who try to keep her away from the electrical outlets and the wires and the used hand towels lying around the kitchen, just begging to be chewed on. And honestly, it kind of sucks.

I think I could deal with a little bit of independence if it made my life easier. But you know what? It most definitely does not do that. In fact, it makes my life that much worse, because now I have to be on her 100% of the time. It's not like I would lay her down on the ground to entertain herself for hours while I napped before this whole crawling thing started, but I could at least set her down for a few seconds to grab something, knowing she would be right there in the same spot when I came back. Now I set her down on the floor in her bedroom to start getting her bath ready, and she's making a play for the cord attached to her white noise machine. Or I set her down in the family room, turn around to grab a book for us to look at, and she's got a dog toy in her mouth.

(The worst part about all of this? More vacuuming. The smallest speck on the floor? She will find it and put it in her mouth. And, I guess that's bad, or something. I mean, that's what they tell me, anyway. So there's vacuuming to be done. And I hate vacuuming. Boo!)

She is so serious, now, too. While she still has her giggles and her smiles to share when she's in the mood, she is so focused on all of the new things around her that she thinks she should have access to, it's a little hard to distract her from the things she actually shouldn't have access to. And, God help you if you try to refuse her one of those things, because that child has a temper. There is this squeal she releases when she is pissed, and it is not at all a pleasant sound. But, you know, there is just no reasoning with an eight-month old, no matter how hard I've tried. Which means we seem to be stuck with the squealing for awhile.

And I think I'm ok with that, right now. I know I have my moments, when the incoherent screeching is the last thing in the world I want to deal with, but I also know that, as quickly as everything else seems to have gone in this whole baby process, we're going to be well past this phase way before I'm ready.

At the risk of sounding like a mommy cliche...

These kids, man, they grow up so fast.