1st Year Reflections

It's been almost 3 weeks since the birthday festivities wrapped up, and I wanted to reflect briefly on Emily first year. What a year of growth it was. To begin, let's start with the numbers (they tell the story themselves!)...

Stats at birth:
Weight: 8 lbs 8 oz
Length: 20 inches

Stats at 1 year check-up:
Weight: 24 lbs 8 oz
Length: 30.75 inches

To sum up, she gained 16 pounds during her first year of life and grew almost 11 inches! Amazing...and confirms her current 18-month clothes size! She has also remained proportionally in the 90th percentile since birth. I definitely don't have a little baby anymore!

In the health category, she's had a great start during her first year. No fever, no infections, no bugs. Just a cold and occasional teething aches and pains. All around as healthy as can be.

As far as her eating habits, Emily has moved from consuming solely milk at birth to now eating table food (cut up), and - no more bottles! Hooray! She has finally mastered the sippy cup and also loves to feed herself (until food starts flying and mommy has to intervene). During her first year Emily never ate out of any baby food jars. This was a blessing and a curse: blessing that she ate wholesome, non-processed, farmers market fresh food, and curse as it was quite a labor of love to constantly cook, puree, freeze, and thaw her food. I'm so thankful that she's now able to eat non-pureed food!

Sleeping has also brought leaps and bounds of change. Emily started out sleeping for most of the day, and now, after shifting from 3-4 naps, sleep training, and some tough love from mommy and daddy, she sleeps 12 hours at night and takes 2 naps daily (we're getting close to 1 - eek!). This has been a challenging category to tackle over this year, and I'm so thankful for family, friends, and books that helped us steer through it. As we know: a well rested Emily = a happy mommy!

Finally, we can't forget activity! In 1 year Emily has gone from a completely immobile, nonverbal infant to a super-fast walking toddler who loves saying 'mama' & 'dada'. She doesn't crawl anymore, but rather zips around as fast as her little feet will carry her. Her new favorite activities are playing outside, swimming, opening/closing all of mommy's kitchen cabinets, being silly with daddy, and sitting with a stack of books and turning each page very carefully. Sometimes I love just standing back and watching her. She's learning and soaking up so much these days.

I could go on about changes in her first year, but alas, I have a toddler to attend to. To sum up, Emily Jayne's first year has been a year of learning, growth, more learning(!), and so much joy. We love our little lady and are so blessed that God gave her to us.