My dear, sweet baby girl,
You're not such a baby any more!
I've spent 30 years living, and I never knew the difference a year could make until I met you. I mean, think about it: in one single turn around the sun, you've: grown almost a foot(!), tripled your weight(!), eaten your first tasty morsels, taken your first steps, spoken your first words, blown your first kisses, laughed your first giggles, and smiled the first of what I hope is a lifetime of smiles.
You've transformed from a tiny little passive (screamy, poopy, sleepy) newborn into an actual person with wants and needs and emotions and reactions and preferences!
I'm getting a little tear in my eye just thinking about it.
So where are you at a year?
You're 19 pounds 2 ounces (17th percentile) and 29.5 inches tall (60th percentile). I don't remember the circumference of your head, but it is in the 85th percentile! You're walking. A LOT. And very well, too. Almost running, really.
You love to dance. And you love music of any sort. The best is still the theme song from Star Trek Voyager, but you also really love Everlong by the Foo Fighters. And you clap your hands when we sing If You're Happy And You Know It.
Your favorite food is fruit. Yes, I know that fruit is a food GROUP, but you really love all fruit. You eat cut up peaches, strawberries, plums, pears, and you squeal with glee when a jar (or more likely bag) of baby fruit wanders your way. Veggies are totally nom nom when they're mixed with fruit, though you eat them pretty well without fruit, too. You were a really great eater until very recently, but just in the last week or so, not so much. I'm not sure if you're developing your preferences and you've just decided that everything I'm serving you tastes like dog food, or if you're teething. Right now I'm betting on teething, because you've still got only 1 tooth, your bottom front left tooth. Surely that right one is coming in, right?? Right???
You prefer showers to baths, and you love to play with the water. You also love to watch Mommy brush her teeth, and to grab her brush and pretend to brush your hair. And then lose the brush. You say brush, sort of, it sounds like "Buh....s". You've actually got a ton of words: hi, bye-bye, uh oh (those 3 are the ones that sound like they should), kitty (keeeee), dog (dah! while pointing at a dog or a picture of a dog), ball (bah! while pointing at a ball or a picture of a ball or one of Mommy's witch-catching glass balls that hangs in the window), diaper (bah-puh), eyes/ice (aye...s while pointing to eyes or glasses or ice in a cup (your first homonym!)), oh wow (which sounds pretty good, but you ellide the words together, usually said when you enter a room, or when you see something cool), book (buh!), done (duh! as you pull off the boob or karate chop a spoonful of food away from your mouth), up (uh! as you stand up or get picked up), down (duh, but with a different inflection (lower pitched) than the duh that equals done and usually uttered as you squat or sit down), and you've just started with milk (muh, while signing milk). You can say "mama" and "dada", but you haven't bothered to label me or your father with those syllables yet, although I think you may be getting close. You also moo/bark when asked, "What does a cow/dog say?". And Daddy swears that you quacked at the ducks last weekend at the park. You can point to your nose, your tooth, and your hair when asked. No wonder your head is so big, you need a lot of space to store so much information! Your Pediatrician says that you know more than 6 times the average number of words (1-3) for your age. Mommy was so very proud to hear that!
You love to turn the pages of the books we read to you, and you love your books. They are the go-to distraction for ending your meltdowns. Not that you meltdown very often - usually when you fall, although you've been a little more meltdown-prone lately. Teeth, right? Not the beginning of toddler tantrums, right??
Your favorite person in the world is your Gramma. You run to her every time. And she loves you just as much.
You love the wagon that they pull you around school in so much that we've gotten you one of your own for your birthday.
You still prefer to fall asleep while nursing, but at school they just lay you down and pat your back til you go to sleep. Honestly, I don't know how they do that. When we've tried that method, you just stand yourself up and look at us like we're crazy. And then yell at us. I have a vague fear that I'll wean you and we'll never be able to get you to sleep again... You sleep about 9-10 hours a night, and nap twice during the day, usually totaling another 2ish hours. You obviously missed the memo telling you that you need closer to 14 hours a day at your age. You're pretty scheduled, but you've scheduled yourself. You wake up around 6, drink milk, eat breakfast, drink some more milk, and almost exactly 4 hours later you go down for a nap. When you wake up, you do it all again, again staying up for 4 hours, exactly. And then you do it all one more time. You require food or milk at 2 hour (or less) intervals for as long as you are awake. Little girl, for such a little girl you can sure pack it away. At least until last week when I started serving you dog food.
You greet every morning with a smile. You are funny, and cute, and precious. You are the light of my life, my sunshine, my reason for being. I can't believe you're already year old, and I simultaneously can't believe you've only been with me for a year!
I love you so much. I can't wait to see what your next year brings!
Mommy
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