We're one month out from the big YEAR mark. Less than a month, even! How can that be possible?? Wasn't it last week that I was waddling around, Jason having to help me in and out of my grey boots, mod podging letters, and freezer stocking meals? Wasn't it just yesterday that I brought her home, tan-orange with jaundice, exhausted, wrapped in those tiny swaddling blankets? Wasn't it just this morning that she laid in our bed, the only place she'd sleep, propped up on the boppy pillow, snug in her tiny practically-doll-sized clothes??
Then how is it possible that I have a walking (running!), talking (jabbering), lasagna-eating, brother-wrestling, laughing, playing, 17 pound, almost 1year old toddler on my hands??
Bananas. Just bananas.
The past year is a rug pulled out beneath me.
Despite my best conscious efforts to savor each moment of babyhood, time has moved at record speed. I blinked.
I'm in awe at how fast my sweet baby has grown in such a short time. Somehow between children I forget how fast it moves. It's like childbirth amnesia.
Sweet girl is up to 17.1 lbs this month at her weight check. Doctor was happy enough to get off my back about it. He said he didn't know what happened between her 6 and 9 month check ups to halt her weight gain. I do. She freaking started walking at EIGHT months! Where's the chart to compare her to other super marathon babies?
Ultimately I'm relieved that I don't have to keep stuffing her full of melted butter and shortening slathered sandwiches to make weight. [disclaimer: I did not really feed her that to make her gain weight. She genuinely liked the flavor. Kidding. I fattened her up with a healthy diet of baby cereal and ice cream.]
She's still in size 3 diapers and 12 month clothes.
She is getting better about the sep anxiety, but still wants her mama when she doesn't feel good. She's a daddy's girl, especially when she wants something.
Sleeps great (knock on wood), naps most mornings and in the afternoon with the boys. She's the only one of my babies who does two naps a day, so it's going to be really hard to adjust to only one when the time comes.
She's decked out in valentine's garb--girlfriend has her own holiday! Since we're moving right before her birthday and in the middle of v-day itself, we're trying to celebrate as much as we can now. We'll celebrate something small for a "party" (brunch?) and let the kids put together valentine crafts, eat cupcakes.
I find myself looking through all the pictures I've taken over the last year; round belly, growing by the week. Tiny, wrinkled face, new to the brightness of the world, swaddled in muslin. Sleeping baby on daddy's chest, progressively running out of room. Crying faces. Beach baby. Multitudes of dresses and girly ensembles and hair accessories. First bites of food, brother-hugs, big grins. I'm nostalgic this last month. These lasts breaths of babyhood. I know what's ahead. Beautiful things. Growing, experiences, personality, exploring, learning. But also the loneliness of searching for that feeling. The feeling of a tiny baby growing inside me. Warm baby snuggled into my arms, face snuggled into my neck. Firsts. There will be more firsts, but these firsts of the first year are nearly over. I'm afraid I will forget things. I know I will. And when I read back over them it will take me back. To a place I miss. And I'll wonder what else I've forgotten, what I didn't write down, what's lost forever. Sometimes if I fold a blanket or drape a burp cloth over my shoulder, it takes me back. It'll have to do.
I want to bottle it up, this time. This tiny little peanut of a girl.
