The “terrific toddler” moments include when your young toddler is learning more and more language and chooses to express sweet sentiments towards you and other loved ones. In the last month or so, Kaia has caught on to the fact that a lot of the people around her say “bless you” after someone sneezes. She seems the most attuned to Chris’s sneezes, likely because he’s an extremely loud sneezer, and less attuned to mine (Chris claims that my sneezes have gotten louder over the years, likely due to his influence, but I am not totally sure that assessment is accurate). Given that, she almost always says “bless you” after Chris sneezes. The other cute thing she sometimes does is at bed time, when it’s just about time for “lights out” after reading together, she will lie down, put her head on her pillow, look at me with big eyes, and say, “Bless you, mummy. Bless you, Daddy. Bless you, Kaia.” And I just become a big puddle of love looking at her, caressing her sweet little smiling face as she’s all snuggled up in her sleep sack and baby blanket. These are the moments I love the most: when she’s being sweet, affectionate, cute, and sentimental, but she’s also expressing more and more of what she learning and absorbing from her surroundings. The toddler years can certainly be stressful and full of angst and helplessness, but these loving moments always keep me grounded. These moments of her being this age will soon pass, and I will still have all these memories, photos, and videos to look back on and remember how amazing she was in this moment of time.