What I missed, even though I was there

Buttercup clapped for the first time today. It was so cute. And once she realized that everyone was staring in utter amazement, she did it again.
What a ham.
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Last week, (please God, don't ask me what day) she began full-out crawling. She has been army crawling for months now, and quite successfully. But she finally decided that there were faster ways to get on Mommy's nerves while simultaneously giving her a heart-attack.
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Her first tooth came in on Oct. 14. She was 4 months old. She now has 8, and knows how to use them.
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Mr. L. swears that Buttercup began murmuring "Ma-ma-ma-ma" when she was just four months old. I heard it, too, but chalked it off to baby babble since she couldn't have possibly known what the word meant. But he was right when he said that she only said it when she saw me or was falling asleep on my chest.
Now, she has Mom, Dada, Dog, No, and Agua (Spanish for water) in her arsenal. And in that exact order.
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So why am I crawling down memory lane? Because I have to, or all of Buttercup's "firsts" are going to be lost to "I don't remember exactly when she..." if I don't record it here. Sure, I have the fancy baby book that I went back and forth to the store for and drove the sales staff crazy with my exchanges until I was happy, but I haven't even cracked it open since she was about four or five months old.
And I have the Baby's First Year Calendar (and the second year is waiting to never be used, too!) hung on her wall. I used it religiously at first to record every little thing from the first time I left her with one of my sisters for baby-sitting to her grandparents' 40th wedding anniversary, which she was a part of.
But then life took over. I started working again. Free time got sucked up explaining to family and friends that working from home did not mean I could accept surprise visits or talk on the phone all day. The laundry stopped doing itself and the dishes got lost in the sink on the way to the dishwasher. My father went into the hospital and never came home.
Then the holidays came and went, and we all went with the flow. I won't say that the year "flew by" or anything cliched, because time passed just as it should have. And while I may not have recorded all of Buttercup's firsts, I was there for them.
I'll tell ya one thing, though. You will never see me giving the Baby's First Year anything at any baby shower ever again. While I once thought they were cute and sweet, I now hate mine for constantly reminding me about yet another thing I didn't have time for.
I got to watch Buttercup find the joy in clapping today. And while I briefly thought about running to grab the book out of my office, I instead stayed put, and breathed in the details of the moment.
Thirty years from now, I will be able to tell you who was there, what time of year it was, and what we ate for dinner. The exact date I can live without.