Our baby girl turned one yesterday! I am still a bit in shock. I just can't believe how fast a year can go by. We are so in love with this little lady. She has blessed our home immensly. I think most people wonder how they will love a second child in the same capacity as the first and I will admit that I was one of those. When I was pregnant with Madelynn I was overcome with joy and deep love for this child I had never met but I would think about Carter and my love for him and wonder how I could split my love with him and another baby. That is one example of God's love that He has given to us. I know that I could never love my two kids the way that God loves them but He has given me the ability to love them in a great way and I am just as madly in love with Madelynn as I am with Carter. I can't imagine my life without either of them and feel richly blessed that God chose me to be the mama for these two precious kids. And my love for Madelynn grows every day I get to watch her grow. She impresses me and amazes me each day. She really is filled with joy and I pray that she will always be this way. She is one of those little girls who just shines. Her smile brightens her face and makes everyone around her smile. And she offers up smiles ALL THE TIME. Most of the time she can't look at someone without smiling, even if they aren't looking at her. And she is a flirt! Her newest thing is to smile this huge, somewhat cheesy smile, tilt her head down by her shoulder, and pull up her shoulders to give you this cute, shy, silly, flirty smile. It melts me! She is a happy girl.
She is fun and silly and loves to show that all the time. She LOVES being thrown up in the air by her daddy. He can swing her around, up in the air, down to the ground, and back up again and she laughs a great happy belly laugh. She loves to wrestle and be chased while crawling away from us. I think crawling after her while she crawls away is one of my favorite things to do because she crawls away laughing hysterically. There is nothing I love more than hearing that beautiful laugh and I will do pretty much anything to hear it. She also loves to be a stinker while we are changing her diaper. She just has a blast trying to flip herself over onto her tummy while we hold on tight with all our might to get her diaper on and her pants back on. She just laughs and laughs. It drives me nuts but she is having a blast. As annoying as it is I love her silliness! She loves her brother and loves to be where he is. If he is playing in his room, she always crawls in there after him. He isn't always the nicest to her but she takes it and loves being with him. She smiles at him with pure adoration in her eyes. It is precious. She does this with her daddy too. I always want to be holding her when daddy walks in the door from work because she begins to shake her whole body and squeal and smile like a crazy girl. As soon as he is in reaching distance she dives from my arms to his. She even once chose him over me :( I was at the church coordinating a wedding reception and Jay brought the kids down so I could see them. I picked her up out of his arms so excited to see her and she immediately turned around and reached for daddy. Broke my heart and filled my heart with so much joy all at the same time. Thankfully her love seems pretty even for mama and daddy right now. She does still want me a lot of the time too.
She is nowhere near walking. She practically runs while she is crawling, she is so fast but is barely even taking steps when holding onto furniture. She can and has taken a few sideways steps on the furniture but that is about it. And forget trying to walk with her while holding her hands. She hates it. She pulls her legs up into the air and refuses to put them down and then will even start to whine and fuss if we try for too long. The funny thing is that parents learn their lesson after the first kid. I look forward to her walking but I am also not in any hurry and will not be trying to push her. She will walk when she is ready. I know that because she is a stubborn and determined little girl at times. I have no idea where she got that from! ;)
Oh, praise Jesus, our sweet, not so great sleeper is finally sleeping through the night! We have had a couple months of greatness at night and I am so thankful for that. She usually goes down around 7 and sleeps until between 6 and 7, nurses, then sleeps again until 8 or 8:30. Naps are still touch and go. Some days we get two great naps from her and other days it is a battle to get her to take one nap. Today was one of those days. I tried for an hour this morning to get her to take a nap and all I got was a lot of crying and screaming. She has this new scream that she loves to show off in bed. Wow, is it awful! The first few times she did this lovely scream, I went running in to see if she was okay. It sounds like she is in horrific pain...it's super fun. I am always hoping she is teething so that I have an explanation for her awful nap days. I stopped here in this blog post and then took her to the doctor for her one year well baby check and found out that she is for sure teething right now. Dr. Wilson looked in her mouth and showed me two molars coming in. Only one cavity of one of them is through the gums and two are through on the other molar. That is why she has been screaming before going to sleep. She has even been waking up once in the middle of the night the last few nights and I am going to assume it is all because of those two molars. Her doctor also said she is about three months early for molars. My little overachiever :) He is 100% confident that her molars are the reason she has been struggling with sleep. I believe it.
At her one year appoinment, just two days after her first birthday she weighed 16 lbs. 13 oz. This puts her in the 9th percentile. We came up a little from the 2nd percentile at her nine month appointment! She was 27 3/4 inches long which was also put her in the 9th percentile. This came down a little from the 12th percentile from her nine month appointment. Her head circumference was 44 cm which was the 25th percentile. She is super healthy, just itty bitty. I love her itty bittyness! Dr. Wilson said she won't worry about her not walking until her 18 month appointment. So we have six months to get her walking and I am not the least bit worried about that! It will happen :) She is in 6-9 month clothes and size 2 diapers. I just love picking out cute clothes for her and dressing her up in adorable dresses for church with headbands and cute shoes to match.
She is really pretty easy. She plays well, sleeps well (unless teething), puts up with Carter pretty well, eats great, nurses great, rides in the car without any issues, goes to people pretty well, smiles at everyone, does great when she's away from us with grandparents or other babysitters, and is all around a pretty happy girl. She has her sassy and needy moments but mostly when she is extremely tired, sick, or teething. She did not start out this way though so we are thankful that she has mellowed out and become the happy girl that she is.
She loves dancing. When the music starts, she starts moving. She loves looking at books and has been found just sitting by the book basket looking through books many times. She loves pulling her shoes and headbands off and play with them while smiling at me. It's almost a smile that says, "ha mom, you are so silly to think I am going to keep these things on me." She loves her grandparents and is so happy to see them everytime. And she loves her blankie! When I pick her up out of her crib she is either already holding onto her blankie or she is reaching for it and grunting to make sure I grab it before walking away from the crib. She crawls over and grabs it all the time when she is playing in the living room or will just crawl over and dive down on top of it and snuggle.
Third times a charm...maybe the third time I get on here to attempt to finish this blog I will actually be successful. Madelynn had a hard time falling asleep tonight. Her nose is a little stuffy and I am assuming her two molars coming in are still bugging her, so I went in and rocked her for a while tonight. It was so wonderful. I was singing to her and she just laid in my arms and stared at me while I sang. It was a very sweet time with her and made it all okay that she had been screaming in her crib just minutes before. And now she is out! She just needed some time to unwind and snuggle with mama.
As I was thinking about wrapping up this blog I was thinking that I should add a list of some of the things she got to do in her first year of life...
She's been on an airplane to fly to Iowa. She has been up in the Space Needle and on a duck boat ride all around Seattle. She's been to the zoo, on the tram at OHSU in Portland, and played in the snow in Iowa. She has been to two San Francisco Giants baseball games and on the cable cars in San Francisco. She has been swimming in California and to the Oregon coast multiple times as well as the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I know there are a few more but I am drawing a blank. I hope her second year of life will include some great experiences for her too!
Madelynn Grace...
We love you so much! You are so incredibly special to us! You bring us joy every single day and I am blessed to call you my daughter. I hope you always have the joy in you that we see today! God made you incredibly special and I know He has amazing plans for your future. And we can't wait to watch...just not too quickly because we kind of like you at this age right now and I don't want you to grow up too fast. We love you baby girl!
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