1 Year!

Noelle-

You are a year old and you are no longer a little baby. You have blossomed in the last month and that personality of yours is amazing. You are active and adventurous and extremely strong willed. You smile all the time. So much, that daycare calls you Smiley. You laugh the most when daddy is tickling you, but I can sometimes get a giggle as well by making funny faces.

Your favorite places in the house are on the stairs or in the fridge. (To clarify, "in the fridge" means while we have it open to grab something...not hanging out in the fridge by yourself). You would play on the stairs for hours if we would let you. You don't climb them too much anymore. Now they have just become a perch for you to sit. I love watching your little legs wiggle back and forth from pure joy as you sit and play with some random object (shoes and socks still being your favorites).

You still love the baking supplies drawer and have now started "mixing". It's so stinkin' cute to see you with a spoon in a bowl, mixing around all the cookie cutters.

You are communicating much more. No words yet, but you can sign "more" (which means you want to eat, in general) and "all done". You point ALL THE TIME now and we spend much of our day trying to figure out what you are pointing at. Sometimes, I'm not sure you know.

Physically, you are an expert walker. You pretty much run these days and only resort to crawling if you trip and fall. Then I think you do it to show us that you fell on purpose :) You seemed to have hit a plateau in your growth and have stayed at the 22 pound range and measured only a 1/2 taller than you did at nine months. Docs say that you are still plotting very nicely and that this is normal, especially since you are walking now and have very little time for eating.

Speaking of eating, you are exploring with foods a little more. Your three favorite foods are still avocados, cheese, and raspberries. You would also eat puffs and crackers all day long if we would let you. You love the fake chik'n and fake sausage that we give you and have rejected the real thing on several occasions - that's my girl! While I am ok with you eating some meat (poultry, mainly), you are just not interested and we aren't pushing it.
We had Granny Annie, Grandpa Al, and Grandpa Shue come to stay with us for Thanksgiving. It was so nice to have us all together as a family and enjoying each other's company. Dinner was wonderful and you again rejected the turkey, but tried some potatoes along with your meal of favorites.

The day after Thanksgiving we did a small birthday celebration for you since we had 3 out of the 6 grandparents present. I made you a cake to try and you were not thrilled about getting your hands dirty at first. Daddy dug in and showed you how it's done, and then you got excited for a little while. You tasted a bit of it, but didn't seem too excited about cake, so we gave you a bath and then did presents.
Your gift from us was a chair of your very own. You LOVED it! You were clapping and bouncing and just so excited about it. I was so happy to see you so happy! It has since remained a favorite item of yours.

Unfortunately, later that night we ended up in the ER. You spiked a fever and would not stop vomiting and it scared us 1/2 to death. They examined you and decided it was just a virus, and then prescribed some anti-nausea meds so we could get you to keep something down. It took about a week, but you did recover. There were a lot of nights that I slept on your floor, just so I could hear you breathing and randomly wake up to reach into your crib and rub your back. It was full circle from your days as a newborn and me reaching out to soothe you while you slept in our room.

Noelle, this year cannot be properly put into words, although I tried. My pictures & videos tell a slightly better story, but they cannot capture what has become of me. I love you more than I thought was possible and some days I feel like my heart will burst from all the joy that fills it. Thank you for picking me as your mom and thank you for loving me as only you can with your silly faces, sideways smiles, and gifts of shoes :)

Love you more than you'll ever know (until you have a child of your own)-
Mama