They Change Too Fast

I can't believe how much children change in the matter of a year.  This photo was taken Christmas 2008.  Julianne was a mere 4 months old.  At the time we thought she was the cutest thing on the planet.  I suppose

that's what parents are supposed to think about their children.  And she was actually pretty cute in this picture.  Pudge and all.  But as time went on she began to change.  To thin out, walk, and ultimately turn into a fiesty little girl.  And a comedienne she is becoming.  In the following photo taken just this afternoon, she saw me holding up the camera and started to make the same motions as I was.
Sometimes I miss that roly poly stage when she couldn't walk and relied on me to do everything for her.  Now that she is learning and trying to gain as much independance as she can, she is a little devil.  Temper

tantrums abound when she can't get her own way.  She needs your undivided attention all of the time. (When she's awake.  And that is becoming more and more frequent.)  Soon will come a day when she doesn't nap at all but I sure hope I can put that off as long as possible.  But nothing seems to ever go the way you want it to.  So you learn to take each day one at a time and try to enjoy it while you can.  I am beginning to learn that there are some things that are just able to wait until later to get done.  I have no choice.  I am the one that must adapt.
The fact that I am sometimes not as attentive to her as I should be, is becoming more and more apparent.  She favours her dad over me.  I try not to take it personally because I have heard this is common with little girls.  But it's hard not to.  She's fine when I am constantly playing with her, but as soon as I have to do something else I get the cold shoulder.
There are some days that I have to actually leave the house for work.  On those days she spends the day with Daddy and when I come home it's almost as if I don't exist.  Sure she seems excited as soon as I walk in the door but it quickly changes.  Then there are the days that I am gone pretty much all day so I don't see her at all and come the next day, like today, everything is about Daddy.  You would almost think that I am the one that works full time and not him.
I hope it's just a phase.  I do take some solace in the fact that when she's sick, I am the one she tends to come to.  But that's not very often.  *sigh*