I have been meaning to write a blog post commemorating Maggie surpassing the one year mark for more than a month now. She turned one year old in the middle of December and now here we are in the middle of January. It is funny to think that I am now the mom of a one year old. It is honestly hard to write about because it is a little hard to think about. My baby is growing up. It’s happening so slowly and quickly at the same time.
She can be fiercely independent, but she’s also still a baby/toddler/small child, so she is still very dependent on her parents. She is good at feeding herself, but wants me to hold her bottles and sippy cups for her. We’re trying to move on from bottles onto straw and open cups, and that is more of a challenge than I realized it would be.
I keep thinking back to when a friend with a baby about five months younger than Maggie recently asked about adjusting to life with a baby and if I felt that I had adjusted. I hope I understood the question the way she meant, but I feel the answer is that I keep having to adjust as Maggie grows and changes. We figure something out together, but then there is a new challenge. There are new, exciting and special things too.
Before I forget, I want to write down some of my favorite milestones and moments from Maggie’s first year. Lord knows I’m apt to forget. I have hardly filled out any of her baby book and I have forgotten when certain things occurred. Dates don’t matter in the long term though and I’m glad I have a ton of pictures to refresh my memory.
I remember the week Maggie was born and how equally stressful and wonderful it was. I was admitted for a C-section following a perinatal testing appointment at my hospital. After a few days of being at the hospital, we were all allowed to go home, only to come back about 12 hours later because Maggie’s jaundice was becoming worse. We took her to the emergency room and then she was admitted and stayed overnight in the pediatric unit for one night. I didn’t mention this in my other posts about her and don’t even talk about it in person much. Not even quite sure why.
The first week could have been worse, but never the less it left a bit of an affect on Paul, myself and possibly Maggie. We went through it and we continued to make it through the whole first year. I swear, everything reminds me of one of Maggie’s books or a Sesame Street song lately. That last sentence I wrote reminded me of the book “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.” There’s a repeated line in the book that goes,”We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it. Oh no. We’ve got to go through it.” That’s how the newborn days felt for me sometimes.
Some of my favorite moments: I loved holding Maggie for the first time after she was cleaned up a bit and I was recovering from surgery. It was crazy to hold my tiny girl and feed her for the first time. I had the kindest nurse helping me and I had my caring husband beside me.
I have loved seeing her get the hang of rolling over, crawling and cruising. She’s 13 months and not yet crawling but that’s okay, she’s getting there. It’s also adorable to see her sign, talk and dance.
I can’t remember the exact first time she laughed or waved, but I have been loving those moments every time. She has the best laugh. Maggie loves to wave at people at the bakery, Boba shop, grocery store, Target, you get the picture.
Here are some of my favorite photos of Maggie from her 1st year of life.
Modern Notebook 