It has been one crazy last week! I believe birthday mania is finally subsiding and my house is beginning to recouperate from the birthday explosion. I thought I might be sad all day on her birthday, but I wasn’t. I cried mostly all day Thursday (I know I need to get a grip), but come Friday, I was so excited to celebrate her birth! She had all sorts of fun with new gifts and new foods on Friday. She got to try her first processed food, first refined sugar, and first grains-- all wrapped up in the form of a Pillsbury cinnamon roll. Yum. I only gave her a little bit, just tossed it in with her blueberries and pineapples. I walked over to the fridge to fill up her sippy cup with water, and when I turned around all of the cinnamon roll was gone. I’d say she liked it ;)
We had a birthday party on Saturday with our immediate families and several close friends who’ve invested themselves in Abi Kate this past year. She always gets excited to see her little friends, so even though she was running on only one nap, she still had a blast. And even though we requested no gifts, she still made off with new bibs, books, toys, clothes, money, and even personalized pacifiers (who knew they could put names on pacis?! So cute!). We opted for a sock monkey theme, for no specific reason except I liked it! For some reason that I cannot explain to you now, I decided it would be a fantastic idea to make the decorations for her party. I am not crafty, people. It’s not that I’m not creative. I can be creative, but then I quickly find someone that I can pay to bring any creativity to life. I seemed to be laboring under some delusion that this would be better, cheaper, and more meaningful. While I’m happy to say that I covered the more meaningful part, I’m not sure I can tag it with “better” and definitely not with “cheaper.” Things that take other people a few minutes to make take me more like a few ages. Multiple hot glue burns, endless ribbon, and more than 2 dozen helium balloons later, I have accepted my title as Uncrafty Momma. (Seriously, there is a scar on my index finger that no longer has feeling from one burn in particular!) As a result, every future Garrett child will be having a sock monkey first birthday party. And should we have a boy, I hope he likes pink! But I do have all the memories of working on them for her and thinking about her as I worked. It was worth it.
Delicious cupcakes! (At least I was smart enough not to attempt to make these!)
Sock Monkey Cake Pops (I'm ashamed to admit how many of these I ate...)
The sign- in table
We had everyone sign this book for Abi Kate as a memory book. Who doesn't love Dr. Seuss?!
You cannot see it well in this picture, but on the front of the candy table there is a flag banner made from sock monkey fabric. THIS is the culprit that left burns ALL over my fingers (Seriously, I didn't even get a picture of it?!)... Never again...
Her month-by-month pictures above the candy table... She has changed so much!
She played with her friends in the ball pit and ate an entire cupcake and we were able to see what a sugar high looks like in our 1 year old. Oh my. Wild Woman. And then we got to watch the crash afterwards. We both said in the car, “And this is why we opt not to feed her refined sugar.”
Our sweet 1 year old!
This is what the end of a sugar high looks like.
After she woke up she decided it was play time again while we loaded the car. And I am seriously in love with these sock monkey woolies. This is one part of cloth diapering I am not allowing myself to get addicted to! (Or at least I'm trying)
We followed up her birthday weekend with her 12-month checkup, which involved a terrible finger prick, not exactly a great birthday gift. She now weighs 20 lbs 10 oz and is 28 in tall, which puts her right between the 40-45 percentiles in both. If you knew her when she was a baby you’d know how hilarious this is. For the first 8 months of her life, she rocked the 90-95 percentiles for weight and height. Her pediatrician told me she’d probably gain very quickly in the beginning and then plateau off after a few months. He was dead on. I guess it’s hard to hang on to the 95% in weight when you don’t sit still for more than 15 seconds at a time. ;) In her full year, Abi Kate has never been to the doctor for anything other than well-checks, and I am unbelievably thankful! She’s had a cold once and the sniffles once. She’s never had a fever or ear infection or stomach virus, and I’m just so grateful. Everytime we go, her doctor always says she is the picture of health. I’m just thankful that Christ has been faithful to answer our prayers about her every day health. I'm such a hypochondriac, so I’m sure the first time she gets really sick I’ll be melting down. I'm glad we squeaked through the first year without this experience!
She isn’t walking yet, and I still think she has another good month or so until she takes those first steps. But she has started standing unassisted. She doesn’t do it all the time, but when she’s really distracted she’ll stand for a decent amount of time. The other times, it’s just funny to watch her face when she has realized she’s let go and is standing alone. Her fourth tooth broke through the day before her birthday, guess he didn’t want to be late to the party. She looks a little older with all those big girl teeth.
Her new favorite things are:
- Pretending like she’s talking on the phone. She’ll use just her hand or steal my cell phone and put it up to her ear and say “Heeeyy”
- Asking for more food-- She says “Mo! Mo!” when she sees food she wants, is hungry, or actually wants more food. She hung out with some friends who have used baby sign language before and she came home signing “more” along with the word, which is cute to watch, too.
- Looking at books by herself- We have a huge basket of books in every room that Abi Kate plays in (courtesy of teaching). Sometimes, I’ll just watch her crawl across the floor and grab a book and sit down and “read it” to herself. I have no clue what she’s saying, but she turns the pages and points at the pictures in the book and just babbles. I think we might’ve read “No More Monkeys” a few too many times as she looked at the book the other day and shook her fingers at the monkeys and said, “No, no!” Whoops….
- Pulling everything out of drawers within her reach-- At any given time, there’s likely to be pans on my kitchen floor, burp clothes and onesies on her floor, and panties all over mine. She also likes wearing my underwear like a necklace… I held her for five minutes the other day before realizing there was a pair around her neck. Is it bad that it fits her like that?!
- Cleaning up-- I’ve started modeling for her how to pick up her toys. She’s a little copy cat, so she thinks it’s great to put blocks away and other toys into a container. We always clap afterwards, and sometimes she gives me a high five.
- Clapping her hands- This is still a favorite. She claps when we start “Pat-a-cake” or if we sing “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. I also listen to mostly live worship music when I’m driving, so at the end when people are clapping, I always hear her in the back seat clapping too and saying “Yaaaaa.”
And at the risk of completely humiliating myself... See, underwear around the neck. Fantastic.
The morning after her birthday, we brought her into our room and played with her on our bed when she woke up. Tommy and I both looked at each other and said she seemed older. She was playing more purposefully-- handed Tommy his phone, she picked up mine and put it up to her ear and said, “Hey.” She stood herself up, wiggling and jiggling the whole way, and let go. When he brought her in, she didn’t see me in the bed, so when I rolled over she laughed out loud and said, “Mama!” She just seemed like an older baby, and I guess she is. I thought it would make me sad, but instead it made me excited. Excited to watch where this year takes her, to see her do things she couldn’t before, and to see her grow. Our first year with her has been as close to perfection as we could imagine. We’re looking forward to another year full of memories with our lovely little lady.
No comments:
Post a Comment