I too was a little mehulent about the newborn stage - sure I enjoyed it but babies are a fair bit of work as well

My favourite stage for DD was just as she was starting kindy/pre-school, so around 4-5. She was just learning so much so quickly and I loved sharing that fascination she had for anything new. It was a time where every new place was an adventure and we'd talk about where we were going and what there was to see and how everything worked.

She still has a massive vein of curiousity about the world and now we have some rather involved conversations about science and philosophy that I absolutely adore. Even if she's a smart alec sometimes