Today was the ‘Tulip Fairy and Elf Festival’ on Pearl Street. Although I’m not over-the-top into all things fairy and princess, and I don’t want you to be too into them either, I do think this is a fun festival celebrating the blooming of the pretty tulipes all along downtown. So we got you all dressed up in a tutu, wings, and wand and headed to Pearl Street. Nana and Papa accompanied us and we all had so much fun watching all of the dressed up little kids running around. You had so much fun. Not quite yet fully used to the sunny weather though, I managed to forget both a sunhat and sunblock. We found a street vendor selling hats and bought you one. And you didn’t try once to take it off! This is hopefully a good sign that we’ve found a hat that you like and will wear. A photographer kept following you and taking your picture; she must’ve taken over a couple dozen pictures. She eventually realized that she was starting to freak us out, and finally said to us that she’s with Downtown Boulder Association.

We made our way down the Mall and headed to the Med for dinner. You had lots of fun sitting on nana and papa’s laps, eating all sorts of food (calamari for the first time!), and watching all the couples come and go for the local prom. What a fun day we had!

You have grown into a very adept little climber. If the danger associated with mountain climbing didn’t freak me out, I’d be prone to say that someday you may be an amazing climber. You are so strong and agile, tiny but long-limbed; you have the body type of a teeny climber. The mountains you summit today are toy chairs, and cars, wooden and plastic boxes, couches and rockers. Just today you’ve set your sights on climbing onto the couch, and this is no small feat. You need something to stand on, and of course you discovered that your new wooden boxes give you the perfect boost. Then you stand on your toes, reeeeeaaaaachhhh onto the back of the couch, and with the abdominal strength of a superbaby, you pull your lower half onto the couch. It amazes me. It also freaks me out. I haven’t quite yet figured out how to childproof our house against your climbing. I don’t think it can be done.

A few weeks ago you started using the ‘more’ sign, and it is by far your favorite gesture, even surpassing your previous favorite move, the ‘point and grunt’. You clearly understand that by doing the ‘more’ sign you get what you want, and you’ve started doing this sign for everything. Last Friday we were at an outside bar and there were birds on the ground eating up crumbs. They flew away and you looked at us and signed. Your message was so clear – more birds! You’re doing the more sign so often that we sometimes can’t figure out what it is you want. I think a better description for the sign would be ‘I want’, rather than ‘more’.

We’re also having some confusion with the ‘thank you’ sign. After you picked up and so wholeheartedly started using the ‘more’ sign, I decided to work to teach you the ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ signs next. Your dad’s also been teaching you to blow kisses. Well, the thank you sign is virtually identical to blowing kisses, so I think you are so confused. You’re clearly trying to communicate with all of these gestures, but we oftentimes find ourselves trying to interpret what it is you’re saying.

Your nana and I went back to the Boulder County Kid’s Sale today. We went to the sale last year and it was crazy. You were just a couple of months old, and we left you with your dad and papa. The sale is very popular and busy, and it takes a bare minimum of a couple of hours. Last year we didn’t know this, and your dad struggled with keeping you happy when you were wanting me to nurse you. This year we didn’t have those constraints and we better knew what to expect.

We came loaded with IKEA bags to hold our findings. We each had a list of the items we were looking for, and we spread out once inside the sale so we could cover more ground. We grabbed everything that looked even remotely like anything I’d want, and we sorted through it all later. I was on a big mission for shoes for you. Since you’re walking really well now, you’re needing shoes with harder soles; a lot of your moccasin-type shoes are no longer appropriate for you. But, you are growing so fast, it seems like you go through shoes quickly. And, kids shoes seem to be a rip off. I really wanted to get you at least one pair of tennis shoes. I lucked out, and got you two pairs! One pair should fit you now or very soon, and the other pair is in the next size up. I was so happy with my finds. They were both for Nike tennis shoes that looked brand new, and they were each $5. I got home and nana was so excited to try the shoes on you. She pulled them out and put one on you then reached for the other one. Then she realized that I’d bought two left shoes. The sale is hosted by the local twins group, so there was another pair of ‘right’ shoes in the sale. I’m hoping we can figure out how to find that bag of rights, but I’m not sure we ever will. That’s a lesson we’ll add to our repertoire for the next sale – check to make sure you have a left AND a right of all pairs of shoes.

I just cannot keep up. My goal was to write a note to you every day for your first year, and in that I succeeded. I loved capturing what was going on in our life, and your latest developments and antics. And it served as a good outlet for me to process what I was going through as a new mother, and to attempt to slow, or at least consciously mark, the passage of time. As your birthday came and went, I decided to keep on writing. But I just can’t keep up. I am falling more and more behind. And this makes me tremendously sad.

I feel like with my inability to write every day comes a failure to catalogue the little things that make each day with you so special, and new, and surprising. I’m missing taking note of your climbing, signing, eating, first real shoes, play dates, coloring, babbling, storytime, outings, outgrowing clothes, sweetness, and lots of adventure. I’m going to try to keep up, but finally just have to be realistic in the fact that I just can’t do it every day.

We got you a helmet today. Mostly it is for you to use when you ride your Strider bike. However, on some of your more daredevil-ish days, which are becoming the norm, I’m thinking of putting it on you first thing in the morning. When we got home from the store we decided to put it on you and see if you’d get used to it. Within about two minutes of putting it on, you walked over to your Winnie-the-Pooh car, climbed on, then pulled your little legs up and stood. On top of your car. And with that, you seemed to be challenging your helmet, saying, “I promise to always show you a good time, helmet, if you promise to always keep me safe”.

We went to Beaver Creek for the weekend with Nana and Papa. The hotel has a big, curvy slide, and you did it all by yourself! I think this is the biggest slide you’ve done all alone. You loved it and kept signing ‘more’.

You’re become very communicative, using your hand to point at things that you want and using your voice to emphasize those wants. You point in the vicinity of something you want, and we play a guessing game of holding objects out towards you until we finally realize what you want. Tonight at dinner you didn’t want any of the food that we kept putting down in front of you. Finally we offered dried mangos and strawberries, and you loved those. You wanted more and more and kept pointing to the bag on the counter to signify this. We wanted you to eat other foods. After your dad gave you a little more fruit he moved the bag out of your eyesight, behind the counter. You immediately pointed to exactly where the bag was and indicated that you wanted more. It was so funny, even though you couldn’t see it, you knew exactly where it was. There’s no outsmarting you!

We watched Isla for a few hours today so Greg and Kristen could have a little date and go ride horses up in the mountains. We’d never watched her before, but we knew from the nanny’s that Isla is very shy and sensitive, and pretty laid back. We walked down to the park and played; you ran all around, and she mostly sat and played with the rocks. When we got home we had snack time and played around the house. She is getting to be quite a climber just like you. But you two mostly got along pretty well, and it was neat seeing you two interact and how different you are. You were born only two days a part, and you’ve spent so much time with each other over this past year, I hope you’ll continue to be friends as you get older.

I have been so sick the past few days, and I’ve had a real hard time keeping up with everything. Luckily your dad was always close by to help out, and your nana was really helpful too. But most importantly, you didn’t get sick!