Dear Tabetha: turning a year old

Dear Tabetha.

On Saturday you will be one year old!  That means that for a whole year we have managed somehow to keep you alive.  You have grown enormously, wiggled prodigiously, and been the Best Baby Ever.

You are a very opinionated little person, with very firm likes and dislikes.  Right now, some of your favourite things include:

• cheese
• whole-wheat macaroni
• fresh ginger
• halibut
• apple
• yam
• sticking your tongue out
• laughing when mommy or daddy puts something on your head
• practicing standing and walking

some of the things you DON'T like include:

• bananas
• rolling over in the middle of the night (you often whimper and complain)
• having your bonnet put on

The list of things you like is a lot longer, and I had to reach a lot further to find even three things for the list of dislikes because you are such an incredibly happy, enthusiastic, cheerful person.  When I grow up, I want to be more like you!

you face every day with a smile, even before you open your eyes.  When you see people you know, you get VERY excited and your whole body wiggles with the effort of containing so much sheer joy.    How cool is that?

Recently you have start doing something that I love.  You've started hugging your little dolly!  You rock her back and forth with her clasped to your chest, and I think it's adorable.  For the most part you are a very active, inquisitive kid, and it's neat to see you voluntarily sit still for a moment without having someone read "Aussie Lullabye" over and over!

You have now been in daycare for three full weeks and a day, plus the week we spent gradually transitioning you in before I went back to work.  I had no worries about you eating well, or having fun, all I worried was that you would not go to sleep easily for the ladies there.  I shouldn't have worried!  Apparently yesterday you went to sleep almost by yourself for one of your naps, and needed just a little encouragement.  Today we weren't so lucky.  You were having so much fun with music class and rocking toys and stacking cups that you didn't want to sleep at all.  It's all good though.  

One of my favourite things about daycare is hearing about things that you did and experienced when I wasn't there.  I love the surprise - you drew with a crayon?  you can DO that?  wow!  I also love the excuse to talk about you.  Every day when  I get to daycare you see me and you light up - no matter how much fun you're having, you crawl over as fast as you can to see me.  And it's wonderful.  I felt guilty for putting you in daycare for a little while, but now I can definitely see how good for you it is.

It's also amazing how fast you've started learning since you've been going!  You aren't quite the youngest - there's a little boy a couple weeks younger, and a little girl born one day after you, but the other nine are all older.  Not a lot older - the oldest is just under 2, but most of them are walking and doing things you can't do yet.  And you're not missing a thing.  It seems like every day you come home with some new skill for us to marvel over.

On Saturday many of the people who love you will come here to help us celebrate your life so far.  There are many, many more who won't be able to be with us, but I know they'll be thinking about you.  You are a profoundly loved little girl.  Your every milestone is celebrated, and I know this celebration of you making one full revolution around the sun will be too.

It's been an eventful year.  you have met many members of your family.  You have learned to smile, to laugh, to babble.  You can now wave and clap your hands, you can sit up, you can army crawl with a toy in each hand or up on your hands and knees when you want to really move.  You love passing things back and forth, endlessly, and you think it's hilarious to watch us talk into your play phone.  

You're a star in the pool.  You have basically no fear!  When other babies cry or fuss when water is poured on their heads, you just try to drink it.  

You love it when we pretend to drop you, when we hang you upside down, when we toss you around and rough you up.  You squeal with laughter and it makes us laugh, too.  How much fun could you be?

The only problem we're having is that you have discovered something new about the cats.  Specifically, you've figured out that Nox likes to hang around your highchair at mealtimes and scavenge food that you drop.  Now you like to lean way over the edge, and sometimes I think you drop food on purpose to see what he'll do.  It's only a matter of time until you discover the fun of feeding him by hand, and then we'll have to start shutting him in the bathroom when you eat!

Over the next year - and probably soon - you will learn to walk, to talk, and to do all sorts of other things that will delight and exasperate us.  Already sometimes we find ourselves trying desperately not to laugh - you like to be a clown, and anything we laugh at you will do over and over.

we love you, little girl.  Happy early birthday!