My girl is one– and a day. How has a year already gone by?

Both sets of parents, my siblings, and my niece all came to Baltimore to celebrate Ada’s birthday. Including us, that is 11 people, which is the upper limit of my house. Just adding Amber’s clan would have sunk us, and we had other friends we wanted to invite, so we decided to have the party at Muggsy’s.

“Wait” you ask, “You had your baby’s first birthday party at a bar? What kind of people are you?”

We are the kind of people who live in a tiny house and wanted to keep the party simple. Muggsy’s has a great upstairs that is perfect for parties. The door closes, so the crawlers and walkers were safe. There is plenty of room, and we like to give the owner our business.

Other than the mad dash to clean my house before everyone arrived, we managed to keep the party fairly simple. There have been playgroup parties that have taken more planning. We did some minimal decorating and cleaning. I bought some balloons and plates. I let go of the details and managed to delegate some of the tasks. My friend Julie helped me with the cake to match the plates. My mother-in-law put the finishing (and most important) touches on the banner. I had made Ada a tutu a few weeks before, so her outfit was set. Danny provided all of the food and beverages. He also turned the TVs to children’s programming and the music to a Pandora children’s station.

I thought it went really well. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and I managed to stay relaxed. It was a beautiful day.

Let’s go back to the first sentence. My girl is one. I am still amazed and astonished that her first birthday has come and gone. She is growing and changing almost daily at this point. Today she pulled a box out from under a chair and used it to climb up into the chair. She is using more language and crawling like a champ.

She seemed to enjoy her party and spent much of the party crawling around in her ridiculous tutu, and chasing the older kids. Last night she was exhausted.

I am still a bit unsatisfied with her birth and my experience in the hospital. I wonder if we would have been better with a midwife, or if we would have survived that experience. I am both thankful and a bit put out that I was allowed to push for as long as I did. I am glad that I was able to avoid a c-section, but wonder if Ada would have been born healthier if I had had one.

The time she spent in the NICU was stressful, but the staff was wonderful to her. I wish Mercy had a better system of feeding mothers with babies in the NICU. I am sad that the three of us didn’t get to curl up together in the hospital bed, while we counted and kissed her toes. These are such tiny complaints though, when I think about how lucky we are to have this amazing wonderful little girl.

Yesterday, I walked into Ada’s room and found her sitting up in her crib. Since she was 6 months old she has been able to sit on her own, if someone sat her up. Actually sitting up herself is new. I watched her move from sitting, to army crawling, and back to sitting. It was great.

Today, Ada called me Mama to get my attention. I was turned away from her. She banged on her booster seat tray, and when I didn’t turn around she said “Mama…Mama…MAMA!!!” and so it begins.

My girl is ten months old today.

My little girl is a chatter box. She talks for hours on end. She loves to make noise and then change the way it sounds, by moving her body, putting her hand over her mouth, or strumming her lip with her finger. She isn’t particularly good at the last two, but is getting there. Lately she loves to sing. She sings to herself as she plays. She repeats songs if you sing them too her. At a wedding we went to she sung to the trumpet after it went quiet. She also has words. She can say Mama, Dada, baby, dog (Dot) and cat(tat).

We have forward movement. It happened Tuesday at the Science Center. Finn had something Ada wanted. She flapped, she pushed, she grunted, she pulled, and suddenly she moved forward. It was not graceful– the cross between an army crawl and an inchworm. She has been practicing.