My Baby Turned One!

Wahoo! We made it! Our baby turned one year old today. This milestone opens up an entire new world of food choices and behavior adventures. It also marks the end of her infant stage and the start of her babyhood. We’ll see more teething, more babblings, first steps, first words, and of course first tantrums. So, today we celebrated. We celebrated her first tooth, her first autonomous movements, first smile, first laugh, first playdate, and so much more. Babies grow so much in the first year. They go from this tiny, soft, demanding, fascinating, amazing, completely dependent being to an active, curious, mischievous, delightful, demanding, amazing, and working-toward-independence toddler.

We started out the morning with mom actually doing a little bit of cleaning upstairs, while the big kids kept an eye on the baby. Well, that didn’t go as well as mom hoped. I came downstairs and found the baby eating the water colors. Fortunately, the water colors were non-toxic – I just hope the paint will come out of her cute outfit.

After the clean-up, we spent the rest of the day playing with her, building her birthday cake, and wrapping presents.

We made the baby’s favorite dinner – pasta and corn. Then we proceeded to have a low-key party. We invited grandma to join us via Skype. We opened half a dozen gifts – she is only one after all. And had a fun time watching her thoroughly enjoy and explore each gift. She struggled with the idea of opening the gift wrap, but she figured out that there were good things inside the brightly colored packages.

She seemed to really and sincerely enjoy each gift she received. And as much as an official one-year-old can say thank you, she did.

What follows is a short gallery of photos of her enjoying some of her gifts. I hope you all enjoy them.