365 Days. 52 Weeks. 12 Months. But Who's Counting?

A year has flown by! Day by day, week by week, month by month we have enjoyed and experienced so many incredible “firsts”. It is now time to celebrate Caroline’s first birthday! Please don't make fun of me for this super long post. I have been printing this blog and using it as Caroline's baby book. Someday she'll appreciate my efforts (I hope!).

At 12 months, here is a little about Caroline:
• Laughs hysterically all-the-time! It’s the most precious sound to our ears. Daddy seems to have a way with her that can make her laugh at just about anything. He blew his nose the other day and Caroline thought it was the funniest thing in the world. She can be ill, but still chuckles.
• Like most 12 month olds, she loves to play. Some of her favorite toys include an empty water bottle with a pack of gum on the inside, Leap Frog musical table, plastic Easter eggs, her princess bouncy ball, and lots of things that don’t belong to Caroline (our cell phones, papers, wallets, ink pens, sharpies, and shoes (gross).
• She can crawl everywhere…very fast. She pulls up onto everything now. Her favorite thing to do is to pull open drawers; especially the drawer on the bottom of our stove. She pulls it open, pulls up on it, and takes all the pots and pans lids out. She then puts them back in the drawer, repeat. Repeat. She also cruises all around the furniture, although doesn’t do it all the time. It doesn’t seem to be her favorite thing to do.
• She hasn’t said “Mama” yet, but C babbles everything else. Most of the time the sound “blah blah blah” comes out of her mouth, which is quite fitting considering we have no idea what she is saying. She really hasn’t said any real words yet, but one day Eric and I both swear we heard her say “bye bye da-da”. But, she hasn’t said it since, so I’m sure that was a fluke.
• Caroline Loves to eat with a capital L. As of now, she is not a picky eater (thank goodness), but I think “pickiness” starts later on. She loves cheese, bananas, and well…everything. She loves to feed herself, but lately has let me feed her with a fork, which allows for less messes at mealtime.
• Speaking of how much C loves to eat, we recently started her on the meal plan at daycare. Before she was just eating the basic baby food in the plastic containers that I brought each week. She refused those at home, so I was surprised when they told me that she ate them each day. We decided to try out the meal plan, and as Mommy and Daddy suspected, she did very well it. Here are some of the things she ate at daycare this past week: Breakfast; nutri-grain bar, pop-tart, oatmeal, cereal, bananas, blueberry muffin. Lunch; corndog nuggets (?), beef tips, rice, green beans, pizza, black-eyed-peas, and a quesadilla. Snack time; cheesy chex-mix, chocolate graham crackers, fruit cups, bananas. I have to emphasize that she LOVES to eat anything. However, they let me know that she did not care for 2 things this past week: black-eyed-peas and mandarin oranges. She is her Momma’s child. I can’t stand those two things, either.
• As much as this 12 month old loves to eat, she loves to sleep just as much! We are still on a 6pm-6am sleep schedule. There are some days where she doesn’t go down ‘til about 6:30, but bedtime routine starts before 6pm most days. We have got to stretch out this routine come summertime. I can’t imagine having to be home by 6pm on beautiful summer evenings for her to go to bed. However, right now, it works out pretty well. She has to get up at 6am to drink her bottle before school. Plus, the 6pm bedtime gives me time to get organized around the house and unwind after a long day at work!
• Unfortunately there is one negative thing to report from the 52 weeks of her sweet life. She has had four double ear infections resulting in tubes. She’s had the throw-up bug (along with everyone else in our house (or who visited our house the following week.)). Also, she had more than her fair share of seasonal colds. After the tubes she has had two more ear infections. We are all ready for summer when she can be away from all the germs at school! Although, there are germs everywhere, so I can’t necessarily blame daycare. But that is better than blaming myself, right?
• Caroline is one lucky 1 year old because she has LOTS and LOTS of friends here in Birmingham. We have lots of play dates, family gatherings; and lately, lots of 1st or 2nd birthday parties to attend! Life is never lonely for us.
Of course we have been planning her first birthday party for quite some time now and I can’t wait to make more memories!

As bittersweet as her first birthday is to me, I know in my heart that I have enjoyed every single moment in Caroline’s first year. We are excited for what this next year will bring.