Cadence, our ONE year old!

Happy Birthday baby girl!! One year ago, today, you came into this world and changed our lives forever.

Oh man, first birthdays, they are somethin’ else. All I’ve been doing all week is reminiscing. Thinking back to last year when I was crazy pregnant, and uncomfortable and so so so ready for our little Cadence to be born. It’s been an awesome year. She was SUCH a good baby (except for the whole screaming in the car thing) and generally, a really good sleeper too (until she started teething). If every baby was like Cadence, I’d have five!

This past month was a whirlwind, which seems to be our new normal. Here are some fun facts about our darling little girl:

Still crawling like a champ. We’ve seen her take a single step, on a few different occasions, only to immediately fall down. But she’s trying! And one of these days she’s going to take off and never look back.

She waves, claps, blows kisses (sort of), blows on her food (ADORABLE), says “mama” “dada” “uh oh” and this sound that makes us think she’s saying “is it?” and “is that?” So we’ve started responding as if she’s asking us questions all the time.

Her default state is happy. She laughs easily and often and Adelaide challenges herself, daily, to see how often she can get Cadence to laugh.

Her intense joy, is equalled only by her intense fury when she’s upset. This girl can yell! And cry! And she really lets you know when she’s not happy. Luckily, though, she’s not upset very often.

She moved into her full-size crib this month, and has been sleeping much better. Only a handful of bad nights instead of EVERY night being sleepless.

Eating is still somewhat of a challenge, and I don’t think it ever will be as easy as it was with Adelaide. I’ve gone back to basics, spoon feeding her purées, and that’s taken a lot of the frustration out of meal times for me. I was trying to feed her small chunks of some of her favorite puréed foods, but it always ended up on the floor. Thank goodness for our linoleum floor!!! (First time we’ve lived in a house without carpet under our kitchen table…since…forever) But I guess there’s some psychological/emotional readiness that has to go along with her physical readiness. We’ll get there…in her own time.

She is down to one breastfeeding per day, and it’s the feeding right before bedtime. She still finds immense comfort in breastfeeding, and this end of day feeding seems to really help her relax and prepare for sleep. On one hand, I was looking forward to being completely done with breastfeeding. But then, I also really enjoy our nightly snuggle time.

She ADORES baths and water in general. It doesn’t phase her in the slightest to have water poured over her head (total opposite of Adelaide who STILL hates to have her hair washed for fear water will touch her precious eyes/nose/ears/face/mouth/head). We’ve started making baths a regular part of our bedtime routine. Happy and CLEAN baby!

We’ve also started making bed time stories a regular part of our bedtime routine, and she loves it! As soon as we sit down in the rocking chair, she starts reaching for the books on the table. Her favorites are lift-the-flap books. Makes sense. She can interact with them! And we have quite the collection of Karen Katz lift-the-flap books, which are a family favorite. I love that she is able to enjoy the books WITHOUT EATING THEM (which is what Adelaide did).

We have her birthday party planned for Saturday. It will be small, just family and close friends, very similar to Adelaide’s first birthday “party”. Today, we’re celebrating in small ways and just loving on this girl as much as we can.

Happy Birthday Cadence!!!