Now playing: Carole King – It’s Too Late

Believe it or not, my daughter turned 1 year old on March 5th.

Time is a funny thing when you have a child. By far the top piece of advice I got was to treasure every moment because “they grow up so fast”. That’s been an interesting experience for me, because I can honestly say that I don’t feel that she’s growing up too fast just going through our day to day time together. When I look back, sure, it does seem surprising that she’s 1 year old now, but every day I don’t feel like time is blasting by at light speed.

I remember back when she was a newborn, and we were both struggling with feeding. The lactation consultant told me that it can take a baby 3-4 months to “get the hang of it”. I love my daughter to pieces, but at the time it felt like that time was creeping by, and in my most exhausted and most desperate times, I felt as though I would have given anything to make the time move faster. She was constantly hungry, I was constantly in pain (both emotionally and physically) and when my husband went back to work those feelings of helplessness increased substantially.

Of course, I did treasure the time I spent just holding her and looking at her,  but yes, I wished she’d grown a little faster so that she wouldn’t have to be so hungry all the time and I wouldn’t feel so guilty for not being able to give her what she needed.

I remember my husband saying he couldn’t wait until Lily became mobile. I laughed at that and told him that yes, we could wait. I just knew that her crawling would open up a whole new world of chaos, and it has! Even though it has been a total blast, there are times I wouldn’t have minded a few more days of non-mobile Lily! It was nice being able to put her down and know that if you walked 2 feet away, we knew where she was!

She’s not walking yet, but her pediatrician isn’t concerned, and neither are we. Back when she had her 9 month checkup, I was amazed at the very obvious efforts her doctor was making to NOT give us the impression that he felt that Lily was somehow “delayed” because she wasn’t crawling. I remember laughing and reminding him that, in my line of work, I have had my fair share of experience watching foster parents and children go through much more difficult experiences with developmental delays, so my expectations of Lily aren’t as high as I’m sure some other new parents are! Lily was born 3 weeks early, and she’s reached multiple milestones about 3 weeks later than other babies. And that’s okay!

She’s a happy, healthy, 22lb (as of the Wii Fit Plus this morning!) little girl with seven teeth, crazy hair, and bright blue eyes. She loves Cheerios, “yee yee”s (her name for bananas) and string cheese. She also loves vegetables (asparagus, spinach, green beans, potatoes, corn, squash, you name it!). She loves to dance to the beat and rock to the theme song from “Supernanny” (the STYLE Channel repeats) as well as the theme song from “The Big Bang Theory” and, yes, “Gene Simmons Family Jewels”. She goes bananas for kitties and her trusty stuffed Tigger is always at her side when she’s relaxing or sleeping. She’s been to Palm Desert (CA), Universal Studios, and the Oregon Coast. She loves her grandparents, her aunt Steph, and especially her uncle Geoff (her first time crawling was to him!).

It’s been a wonderful year and I’m confident that this next one will be just as great, if not better!