Well, everyone, we did it! Keira made it through a whole year safe and sound! Well, okay, her current nickname is boo-boo cause she gets so many, but mostly safe and sound...
It is amazing to me how much she is growing even from day to day. I looked at her the other day and I realized that she isn't my little baby anymore. She's really a little girl now. She has 3 teeth, a little hair, and a hugely independent personality! She has been walking for about a month and a half now and she is really getting quite stable now. We do laps around our living-dining-kitchen area. Now she plays peekaboo games with us, instead of the other way around. She also likes to close doors on us and then let us back in. She still uses specific words only very infrequently, but she has mama, more, and uh-oh pretty consistently.
Her birthday party was a huge success. I, of course, was very stressed because I had thrown my cousin's shower and my mom's surprise 60th birthday party the weekend before. This was the third of three parties, and I was tired. When the day came though, it was great! We had such a wonderful turn-out of family and friends. I wasn't quite sure how 45 people were going to fit in my little townhome, but it was cozy! My Babka was feeling good enough to come and it was so special to have her there! She was literally the life of the party. I made the traditional Moore 1-2-3-4 cake with party icing. It's so gooooood! I need to remember to make a double batch of the frosting...The Portillo's and McDonalds' cake were also good. Keira was such a good girl for her party. She just watched everybody and took it all in. She liked the italian beef and bread. The cake didn't go over well, but she did end up licking the icing off of her fingers! A girl after my own heart. By the time we got to presents, she was pretty tired out and only had energy to pull out the tissue paper from one present. I took care of the rest with her lounging in my lap. I think I need to hide some of her new toys and pull them out in a few months. She has so much stuff out, she can barely get through! Her favorite "toy" is a toss-up between her new talking purse and the music card that her Aunt Victoria sent her that plays Winnie the Pooh when you open it. She spent half an hour going back and forth between J.R. and I showing us how the card sang to her. It was so cute. I think she had a good time all told!
The day after her birthday we went in for her year check-up and vaccines. She weighs 24 lbs., is 30 inches tall, and her head is 18 inches around. She is right on with her physical benchmarks. Her speaking is a little behind, but she started walking so early, we think she just diverted a good bit of her energy into that instead. She is verbally communicating, just not matching specific words to as many objects/actions as our doctor would have expected. We are now making a whole lot of changes. Whole milk instead of formula, sippee cups instead of bottles...throw in the fact that I can't hold her in my lap to put her to sleep anymore because she is too big to get comfortable, and we are basically changing our entire sleep routine. So far so good, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm certainly not complaining. Three out of four nights this week I've been able to sleep straight through. I wake up feeling like a new woman. Then by ten I'm wiped again, because of course this is the week my body succumbs to the illness that has been circulating in my room for the last 2 weeks. I'm just hoping its not H1N1 flu. We had our first case reported at school, and I'm terrified of passing it along to Keira. Here's hoping that she manages to stay healthy through this flu season.
I was going through my camera today and I saw the picture that J.R. took when they handed Keira to me for the first time and I remembered that overwhelming feeling of love and responsibility and elation that washed over me. I feel truly blessed that I get that same emotion every time I walk into day care to pick her up and she throws those little arms around my neck for a tight hug, as if she's been waiting for me to walk back in that door all day so she can show me what she's been learning. It's been a year of tough learning, tears, frustrations, and fear. It has also been a year of laughter, joy, love, and smiles. And so it goes...I wouldn't have it any other way!
