PJ's Big Day!

I have a backlog of drafted posts. Seriously. I need to write a book - How the Grinch Stole My Blogging Ability - because I haven't finished any of them... After I publish this one, maybe I'll backtrack for the heck of it. Of course, I HAVE to publish this one today!


Author's Note: December 2, 2007 contains all the necessary background information. Read it. And then read it again. It's that good. And if you like it, you can download a copy for FREE (just pay $19.99 shipping & handling).


I just LOVE LOVE LOVE my little princess! I can't believe she turned one today! With the Thanksgiving holiday and then our family being a bit under the weather, it wasn't the perfect day I had envisioned. But we managed to get in some shopping, food, presents and cake, so it works, right? We plan on continuing the celebration in a few days, hopefully with my sister and her family :)

I have seen people write a little tidbit for every year of the birthday person's life, but if I followed that trend, I'd only get to write ONE thing. I am way too verbose and way too much of a proud mama to stick to just one. So I'll try one for each month she's been alive :)

1. Contrary to the appearance of this picture, PJ has always been a complete and utter Mama's girl. Most of the time I'm overjoyed - it's endearing to see your child scream and reach out their arms for you when someone else is holding them! I partially contribute this to the fact that I've made it the whole 12 months nursing! (The other two stopped at 9 and 6.5 months.) Anyway, I love love snuggling her and don't mind too much that she always wants ME. She'll grow out of that WAY too quickly.

   

2. PJ is named after her great-grandma. Well, just her middle name. She is the first of great-grandma's descendants to carry her name. And it is just a perfect fit for her - I hope she can live true to the name she's been given. We miss Grandma so much now that we're in Texas!

   

3. She had a hard first couple of months. She was born, we had Christmas, we sold our house, we moved across the country, we put our things in storage and lived in an apartment, we moved again in our new house... She really was a trooper for those first few months, although she did spent quite a bit of time sleeping in her car seat in one of many bathrooms with the exhaust fan going to drown out the excess noise.

   

4. PJ is my little roller. Neither the Bubbs or Simster ever really mastered rolling, they both despised tummy time, and both made me feel like less of a mom at our four and six month doctor's appointments... But not PJ! She started rolling before she turned four months and has been rolling every since! (When we still had her in the PackNPlay, she started rolling underneath the changing mat thingy...)

   

5. PJ loves her siblings. And her siblings love her! I have really enjoyed watching the Bubbs and Simster learn how to be gentle and play nicely with their little sister. Now that she's more mobile, they do squawk when she takes their toys, but overall they all love playing together! Just today, all three of them played in E's room for half an hour together. It's a beautiful thing.

   

6. Of course, how could this be complete without a swimming picture? We do live in Texas, after all. PJ already loves the water. She would splash around in her floaty in the pool until she got tired, then I would tuck her in her stroller or car seat and she'd nap in the shade until we were done. And just look at that cute hat! :)

   

7. PJ (with me on the far right - don't ask about my choice of head attire...) joined me for an interesting week at Girls Camp. We had three babies with us that week - I'm sure it's a Girls Camp the YW won't ever forget. She did get the nickname "Onion baby" because she would pretty much cry when any of the girls held her. Mama's girl. :)

   

8. Look who's smiling! And look who decided to finally like her swing! She's just so adorable and has a smile to melt your heart!

   

9. PJ doesn't really play with other kids yet. Mostly she just lets them attack her. But when we visited with my friend's son while we were in Utah, she had to show him who the boss was!

   

10. Mom's prerogative - the no-clothes-on-baby-bath picture. This one's going to be on her wedding video. Hee hee. Another thing to note - have you noticed she looks about the same size in many of these pics? She is very petite - we went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and she's just over 14 pounds. She eats like a piglet but isn't gaining much weight. The doctor was concerned so we did some blood work. Results came back with some anemia and elevated liver enzymes. Nothing to freak out about, but we'll be monitoring it a bit. And on Thursday I'm going in to have a "Feeding Evaluation" at the hospital - they'll evaluate her oral motor function feeding skills to see if something could be involved there. I'll keep you posted. Maybe. If I blog again :)

    

11. She loves crawling. She's been doing the army crawl since she was about six and a half months old. She is just starting to crawl a bit on her knees instead of scooting, but she's not really trying to walk yet. Her favorite thing to do is to make a beeline for the electronic equipment in our living room - pull out cables, tip over speakers, generally wreak havoc. And I think also in this picture she's treating me to a present in her diaper. Just in case you were wondering.

    

12. Enjoying playing with GeoTrax at her cousins' house over Thanksgiving. I wish I had a picture of it, but she absolutely adores animals - cats and dogs mostly, and they have both. She squeals and tries to pet them and crawls after them and is the opposite of fearful. It makes me a little sad we don't have our dogs anymore...

So that's a PJ update in a nutshell! I am so blessed to have her in my family. I can actually see why people have tons of kids. I am enjoying watching each of my children grow. They are each individual spirits with their own personalities and strengths and weaknesses and each contribute a piece to our family puzzle. I can not imagine life without my little girl! Some final pics of her bday...