Dear Lily Bean,

Well we survived your first year. It has been such a wild ride and Daddy and I have loved every minute of it. In a very short 365 days you have gone from a tiny helpless lump of lovable newborness to a fast crawling somewhat independent big girl. You are a true Mommy’s girl and I love it. Daddy called you my BFF the other day and I realized he was right. You love getting kisses from Daddy and I and if you’re in the mood you will give us kisses. You are such a sweet girl.

We are still co-sleeping and loving it. When you take naps (which are usually very short) and when you first go to sleep at night I put you in your pack-n-play which is in our bedroom. When you wake up at night I bring you to our bed and we snuggle all night long. Waking up to your sweet smile is the best thing in the world and I’m in no hurry to change things. It would be nice if you took up a little less of the bed though. I have no idea how or why someone so small can take up so much room. I’m squished between you and Daddy and sometimes I wonder how Daddy doesn’t fall off the side.

We are still nursing champions. It took us a little while to get breastfeeding down to a science but once we did we were good to go and at this point I see no end in sight. Ok, so maybe I do. Right now Daddy says he would think it was a little weird if you were still nursing if you were older then 2, we’ll see how it goes. Nursing is still your main source of food but solids aren’t far behind. You love to feed yourself and do so with zest. I haven’t found a food that you won’t eat. For a while I thought you hated bananas but I think it was just that they were mashed up, once I started giving you bite size chunks of banana you were a happy girl.

You are finally getting a little more hair. Up until this month you had just the hair you were born with, you never really lost any but you didn’t grow any either. I still can’t do anything fun like pig tails or anything but its nice to just look at. It’s such a pretty color too. It’s sort of red, I can’t wait to see what it will look like when it’s longer.

Daddy and I have always known you were perfect but as I’ve stated before your doctor was worried about you. Well we went to your 1 year well child check up the other day and your doctor finally agrees with us. Yay. You are still a tiny pip-squeek of a kiddo and that is fine with us. You weigh 15 lbs 2 oz which puts you in the .14 percentile, you are 26 3/4 inches long and that is 2.7 percentile and your head is 16 3/4 inches around which is 2.38 percentile. Your head is finally on a growth curve and the doctor says that when we go back in a couple of months if it’s still on the curve they can take the small head diagnoses off your chart. That is such great news. At 12th old you are currently wearing mostly 3-6 month size clothes. I really wish clothes were marked using weight or something.

There are so many other things I want to write about so that I remember them when you are all grown up but I don’t know how to put them into words. Like when you think something is cute you sort of duck your head down and smile really big. Or like when your expression melts when you are scared or the one time we hurt your feelings. There are so many other things that I want to write about but words just don’t do them justice. We are trying to take as much video as we can but you love the camera so usually as soon as we start recording something (which isn’t as often as we wish it was) you just want the camera and stop doing what ever it was. I think taking more videos will be my number one New Years resolution.

You are the most shy and sensitive kiddo that we know of. It’s funny but in the 12 months that you have been in our lives I think the longest I’ve been away from you is 45 minutes I think twice, and you were with Daddy during my absence. Daddy and I are really the only ones that get to hold you and when we are around strangers (and sometimes people that you know pretty well but haven’t seen in a little while) you cling onto us like you are sure they murdered someone the night before and you are their next target. All of this is to say that when Daddy and I were talking about this the other day I summed it up perfectly, you are the perfect kid for us and we are the perfect parents for you. We don’t care that your shy and that we can’t leave you with anyone so we can go out by ourselves. We are both very shy so we understand it and hopefully will be able to gently teach you to learn to deal with things.

Some other things to note… You have three very cute teeth. Daddy says you are such a stereotype with that one upper tooth. You have the best laugh. We spend a lot of the day playing and making you laugh. I love it. You are cruising along all the furniture, I’m sure walking is in our very near future. By the way I don’t’ think I’m ready for that just yet.

Happy 1st Birthday Baby Girl!

Love,

Mama