1 Year

Dear Emma,

Today you are 1 year old. And typing that sentence just blew my mind. I’ve heard a saying many times over the last year that “the days are long but the years are short” and as I sit here reflecting on the first year of our lives together, nothing has ever seemed so true. Sometimes, mired in the minutiae of changing diapers and making bottles and keeping you from sticking your tongue in an electrical outlet, I wondered how we would ever survive the day, let alone a whole year.

But here we are. You are 1. And it can’t possibly have been a whole year since you came into our lives, yet somehow it has. I know it’s cliche for a new mom to say things like that, but there’s a reason for my disbelief. A year ago, you were a scrawny newborn who couldn’t do anything but eat, sleep, cry, and poop — not to mention that I didn’t know much about babies! I hadn’t changed a diaper since my babysitting days as a teenager and certainly didn’t feel qualified to take home an infant.

And look at you now! My little girl, my little explorer! On Sunday, you took what Dad and I are generously calling your first step. It was just one — a single shift of your left leg from being in line with your right to a step ahead — but it seems so huge. If you crawl, you’re a baby, but if you can walk? That’s full-on toddler in my book.

I read in one of our baby books that the average baby triples their weight in one year. Well Emma, you are already quite the overachiever in that department — at 25 lbs 5 oz as of 10 days ago, you have officially quadrupled your weight. After all of the illnesses you battled back in the spring, I was hoping to avoid another trip to the doctor until your 1 year checkup tomorrow, but we ended up back there this month with another ear infection. It was your third since January so you may be headed for ear tubes, but we’ll see. I just want to keep you as healthy as possible! Now that you’ve got a whole year under your belt, I’m hoping your immune system will respond accordingly.

You are generally a happy little girl, but we are starting to see more and more of this face as you develop your own likes and dislikes — and now have better capability to express them. You wriggle and squirm and whine when I’m trimming your fingernails. You often fuss when we lay you down for a simple diaper change. You smack the spoon if you don’t want what’s on it, which is so not cool. This morning you got quite irate when the kid-proof latch prevented you from opening the cabinet under the kitchen sink. And for the past week or so, you’ve been more clingy than usual, starting to cry if I walk away for even a moment.

But this newfound awareness of the world around you has its upside too. You discovered how to point and now it’s your favorite thing to do; you aim your little finger toward everything — ceiling fans, stuffed animals, pictures on the wall, the doorbell — and drive home your interest with a loud “daaaa!” or “dat!” You love to open your dresser drawers and take out each item of clothing one by one, and if I’m lucky you’ll even put them back in. A few days ago you were basically playing fetch with yourself, “throwing” a ball and then happily retrieving it so that you could do it all over again. And last week when I gave you a bath, you laughed harder than I’ve ever seen as you splashed and splashed. Water ended up everywhere but I didn’t care because I was laughing right along with you.

Emma, the past year has been crazy, joyful, stressful, funny, tear-inducing, happy, hard, incredible, frustrating, awesome, trying, rewarding, so very challenging and so very amazing. I am so happy to be your mama, and I look forward to many more years of helping you grow.

Love,
Mama