I'm sitting in our living room, watching her play today. Tyler's at basketball practice. It's his last before the team's first district game tomorrow. Anyhow, I'm watching this baby, my little baby, pull herself up to stand on the dog, stand by her "Learn and Groove" table, talk to herself, page through her book, crawl all over, and empty out her toy bin again. And again. And again. Sometimes I have to just take a minute, clear her blanket off, putting everything back in the bin, because I just can't take the chaos of the toys... say it with me now: O.C.D.
I can't believe how all of a sudden, her development is taking off. We have a calendar that my bestie gave me for Christmas 2009. It's one that comes with milestone stickers for firsts, holidays, special times, number of months old, etc. I've taken the liberty of writing my own stuff in (because, hello, I'm her mom... duh!) like the day she woke up to see her first snowfall. I'm not kidding when I tell you that I put about 90% of the stickers on one week. One week. In one week's time (actually about 4 days), Lydia started waving bye-bye, clapping, crawling, pulling up to standing, turned 9 months old, went to a check-up, had her first Valentine's Day, and got her third tooth. Ho-ly cow. Where's my baby gone to?
Just the other night, I was poking around in her mouth (which makes her mad, but again. I. am. the. mom., kid.), and I found her fourth tooth. We have this habit of getting two teeth at a time, but about 10 - 13 days apart. In October, Lydia got her first tooth. Eleven days later, she got her second tooth. Then we worked. And worked. And worked for the third tooth. Lots of drool, next to no sleep, some fevers here and there, and many crabby days later, we got a third tooth. On Valentine's Day. What a romantic that girl is! Anyhow, Friday, February 25, I felt a fourth tooth. On top this time. OH NO! As I explained to my husband, big kids have top teeth. Not my gummy smiled, no toothed little baby.
We've started talking birthday party plans for LC's first birthday. It's hard to believe that my baby will be a whole year old. Just a year ago, I was pregnant (obviously), but it is wierd to think about the things we were able to do a year ago without our Little. It's also strange to think about all the things we were planning for our Little and she hadn't used anything we had purchased; everything was so new and...anticipatory.
I guess that's how I feel about her birthday. While I'm sad for her first year to be over, I'm anticipatory. I'm anxious to see what Lydie looks like as a walking big girl. I'll always long for her baby, newborn, curled-up, wrinkley days, but I know they won't come back. Memories are a wonderful piece to this life (so are photographs!) and I have so many from when she was little. I don't think I'll ever tire of talking about her delivery, our trip home from the hospital, how my parents came up with a meal (and many frozen meals) when we first arrived home, the first time we took Lydia for a walk in her travel system, the way the train barriers came down as we were crossing them to take Lydia back to her first doctor's appointment, the fact that Lydia pee'd on her newly-daddied Daddy at our newborn photo session, the waiting and waiting and waiting we did trying to catch her rolling over on our video camera, or any of the other memories from these past 290 days. So, Miss LC, here's to 290 more days, times infinity.
P.S. - I suppose I should include a disclaimer on this blog. In the next 75 days of Lydia's first year, the blogs I write about my little baby may (okay, will) become increasingly sappy. Again, I'm her mom. We tend to do that.
