So What’s New?

If I were better about blogging, I could probably write a post every few days about something new Lexie’s learned. The speed at which she picks up new skills and knowledge is unreal. Imagine if we all kept on learning at that rate throughout life!

Last week was the big one – Lexie took her first steps!!! It was just a little while after Andy and I got home from work Wednesday night, June 14th. What an amazing feeling it was to see her stagger across those few feet with the biggest, proudest, most wonderful smile on her face! We’ve spent as much time as possible since then encouraging to do it more and more, and her improvement in just that short span of time has been quite impressive, I must say.

But the walking is only part of it. She’s climbing up (and down!) the stairs (with Mommy or Daddy right behind, of course). She’s using her own spoon more and more to eat her oatmeal, yogurt and fruit purees (though just as much ends up on her tray, her hands and in her hair as in her mouth).

While just over a month ago you couldn’t get her to sit still for one minute to “read” a book, now she  climbs into our laps and stares intently at the pages, pointing at her favorite pictures (ducks are always a favorite).

And then there’s the talking. It’s been some time since she’s mastered Dada, Mama, “yeah,” and “no.” Then there was “dog,” “duck” and “ball.” Adorably, her latest thing is animal noises. Just a week or two ago, she started saying, “baa” and “moo” when asked what the sheep or cow says. Today, she added a new one  - “neigh” – for horses. It’s unreal (and impossiby cute) to be flipping through a book with her and have her see a picture of a sheep and say “Baa!” It’s to die, seriously.

It just keeps getter better and better, doesn’t it?

A Year in the Life

It’s 8:50 p.m. on July 1, 2010. A year ago today at this very time, I was lying in a hospital bed, swollen with baby, stuck through with needles and shot up with drugs. A little more than four and a half hours later, Lexie (finally, finally) popped her dark-haired little head into our lives.

It was a hell of a day.

I’d awakened at 5 a.m. with contractions, blissfully ignorant to the fact that I wouldn’t sleep another full night until just before Thanksgiving. I was ignorant to a whole lot of things just then.

It’s been a hell of a year.

Of course now, as promised by all the (annoyingly self-satisfied but as it turns out, sage) parents who gave us advice, the seemingly endless march of those early days has faded away. All the middle-of-the-night feedings, the hours spent rocking Lexie to sleep, the near-constant spit-ups — even the dreaded evening fussies! — seem more like hazy, remembered dreams than real life.

When my mind does wander back to those tough times – the guilty flashes of anger when she just wouldn’t stop crying, the way my pulse would quicken and my heart would drop when her cries punctuated my sleep at 3 a.m., the creeping fear that real life would never, ever resume – I often think, “If only we’d known her then. Maybe it would have been easier.”

Well, probably not.

What I really mean is that I just had no idea what a spectacular, amazing, intelligent, hilarious, dramatic, loving, sweet little girl she would grow into in just a few short months. Her personality was quick to develop, and as it did – and we got to build a real relationship beyond the automatic status of mother and baby – my love for her grew to indescribable depths.

Yes, folks, we’ve arrived at the ridiculously mushy part of our program. I am so in love with this child I can barely see straight. In my eyes, she is beyond a doubt the most breathtaking, gorgeous and adorable creature on this Earth. She is literally a bundle of joy.

Yes, every last cliche has come true.

She spreads happiness wherever she goes. I love watching her engage not just the friends and family who love her but also complete strangers. She peers up at them, smiling and waving frantically until they can’t help but return a wave and a smile of their own. She’s such a good-natured, sweet little girl (surely traits from her father), though of course not without her challenges (a bit of her mother in there, too, perhaps?).

How much I love her simultaneously blows my mind and scares the bejeesus out of me on a daily basis.

She is truly the joy of my life and the best thing that ever happened to me. Just looking at her sends happiness coursing through my veins like a drug.

I just can’t get enough.

I love you, my Lexie. Happy first birthday, baby.