I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on you, baby girl. It was 1:19am. After 26 hours of labor, 3 hours of what felt like I was going to push so hard my brains were going to squeeze out of my ears, there you were. Perfect in every way. Somewhere Over The Rainbow was playing in the background as we held you for the first time. It’s the same song we heard when we were in Hawaii on vacation 2 years before that, waiting and wondering if you’d ever get here. The one we listened to as we lay on Makena Beach, dreaming of the day we’d hold a sweet little girl in our arms. It was the song we’d heard one morning when we went out to breakfast to celebrate my pregnancy. We walked in the restaurant and heard the part about "what a wonderful world" and my eyes teared up, thinking, indeed, what a wonderful world it was. As we read in our pregnancy book later that night, that was the day, developmentally, that your heart likely started beating. I’m pretty sure it happened that very moment we heard the song that morning in the restaurant:)
I’ll never forget the moment you were wheeled back into our room in the hospital after the nurses and doctors were done checking you out. I looked at daddy with tears in my eyes and said – “she’s really ours”. It felt so surreal that years of waiting and waiting had come to an end. You had arrived. In your own time and in your own way. God had you all picked out just for us. What a wonderful world.
As I look back over the last year, I can’t help but tear up as I type this. Its been better than I could have ever imagined. I keep saying I don’t want you to grow up, but with each new day and each new step, I love you even more. If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it in a heartbeat if I knew it meant having you to hold every night. You truly are our little gift of happiness. Happy Birthday, Makenna Lee! We love you!!!
So, what are you up to this month?
Your personality continues to shine through. You are such a silly little girl. You love to be the center of attention and if you have everyone’s attention, you will slowly look around the room to make sure everyone is looking and then laugh and do silly things. Your favorite word continues to be “hi”. You love to say hi when we come in to get you out of bed in the morning and to every stranger you see when we are out shopping. You prefer to surprise people with your hi’s and say hi to strangers when they aren’t looking. If I try to get you to say hi to people, you get all shy.
You still aren’t walking, but are getting really fast with your crawling. You pull up on everything and are into EVERYTHING these days – you love exploring. If we leave the doors open, you crawl as fast as you can toward the bathroom or the office. Your absolute favorite thing is balloons. It will make you stop crying in a heartbeat. Taking one away will make you start crying in a heartbeat. When we are at the store and you see a balloon, you can’t help but point to it and say what sounds like balloon.
You are talking nonstop, with your clearest words being dada, hi, mama, puppy, papa, up, out, water and ball. You mimic a lot of other things we say and the rest just sounds like Chinese:)
You are sleeping through the night and taking 2 naps a day – usually for an hour each. You go to bed at 8pm and wake up a little after 6am most mornings. You like to sleep with your blankie Oma made for you and you still take a nuk when you are sleepy.
You love going for walks, especially in your scooter and in your wagon. You love being outside and watching the neighborhood kids play. You also love to harass Bugsey – you crawl up to him and try to grab his collar. He wants nothing to do with you, but I’m sure once you start walking, he’ll enjoy a good game of chase with you.
Happy first birthday baby girl!! What a great year of memories its been! We love you!!!
