Thanks for making me a mother over a year ago. It’s been pretty amazing, and being a mother’s been the most fun, crazy, tiring, rewarding, insane, amazing experience. Thanks sweetpea.

I bought you a little plastic play area with a slide attached. It’s a little like a house, with no roof. It has a door and three sides, then a slide coming out of the fourth slide. There are little areas where you can grab onto or get a foothold and climb up. You’ve been really enjoying playing on it, but haven’t been climbing on it too much. You have mastered how to get up on to the top ledge to slide down. You stand on your toes and reach forward, sticking your fingers in the slot between the ledge platform and the slide, then pulling yourself up with your arm and stomach muscles. Then you turn yourself around so that you can go down feet first, and you’ve amazingly never fallen off! You are so strong and coordinated.

Today was my birthday and your 15-month doctor appointment. I took the day off and we spent the morning together, than headed to the doctor’s. Your appointment went well though you are starting to display some fussiness which they said is attributed to the fact that you’re starting to remember the office and people, and putting it together in your brain that the doctor isn’t always a fun time. But even with two shots you recovered relatively quickly. You are still teeny, weighting just 17.8 lbs; you weighed way less than your dad’s guess (19.5 lbs) and mine (18.13 lbs). You’re growing just fine though and your height and head size are about in the 50th percentiles still, while your weight is around the 5th. The doctor’s a little worried that you’re not saying any words yet, but I know you understand so much and are processing so much, you’re just working on how to say it all.

After the appointment we met up with nana and papa at home and they watched you for the afternoon while I got a massage and did some shopping. You fell asleep before I left and I was gone over three hours, and when I got home you were still asleep! I think nana and papa were a little disappointed they didn’t get to spend any time playing with you (though papa trimmed all my roses so that was great!). We all went out to a fun dinner at Jax and you enjoyed your first ‘color on the paper tablecloth’ experience.

Tonight as I rocked you to sleep I thanked God for you, the best gift I’ve ever received.

You wore an outfit given to you by Katie at my baby shower. She bought it in Mexico and it was perfect for the occasion. Adorbs!

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”.