Erin Loves Brad: Letter to my Little Lily: 1 Year

This post is two weeks late, but I finally got it done! The tardiness on my part in no way reflects how much we love you, Lils.

Happy first birthday, Lily!

Goodness gracious. I can't believe that I'm already writing this letter. Every month of your first year has zoomed by! While the adage "the days are long but the years are short" hasn't even felt to ring fully true, as my days with you haven't (usually) felt all that long. Of course, some days are more difficult than others, but generally, your disposition is so sweet and fun and happy that I haven't felt that long-day-short-year phenomenon. I thank you for that.

You have become such a fun and lovely little person over the course of this year. You are still so very sweet and happy, laidback and easygoing; at the same time, your personality has really begun to shine. We've seen you turn into quite a little ham who loves to be the life of the party...but only after you've had a few minutes to warm up to your surroundings. Before you were born, I genuinely worried that you would be overshadowed by Claire's big and engaging personality. I look back on those thoughts and feel so silly; you are your own girl and can keep up. We love watching you!

Over the past month, you have kept us on our toes with your growing capabilities and antics. Yes, antics. Your coffee bar antics, for example. In our house, we have a section of our kitchen that is somewhat blocked off to the rest of the first floor and is where we have our "coffee bar." This area is, as Daddy says, "restricted floor space," and you know that you aren't allowed in there. Nevertheless, you take every opportunity to skitter in there and begin foraging for leftover Cheerios of Claire's. Or just to reach up on her table and pull off coloring books and crayons (even though it's our coffee bar, Claire's craft table is also in there). Or inspect coffee paraphernalia. No matter what you're searching for, you know you aren't supposed to be back there. We regularly have to set up barricades just to have a few moments of peace from protecting your well-being. A few weeks ago, I sent this text to Daddy:

Your mini-me evaded my coffee bar barricade, popped a coffee bean in her mouth, and pulled the French press off the shelf before *I* could evade the barricade to retrieve her.

That totally happened. My barricade was efficient enough to keep ME out but apparently not you. You are a tricky trickster.

The coffee bar area. I FINALLY discovered that if I turned Claire's craft table sideways like this and lifted the total restriction from the coffee bar (while effectively keeping you from the actual coffee), we could reach a happy medium.

You absolutely know how to get a laugh. We think you're hilarious, and you seem to think so, too. The faces you make are out of control, and your ability to imitate sounds is impressive. You are SUCH A HAM. And we love it.

We're discovering that you are a much more physical child than Claire was. You crawl very competently and are, unfortunately, really into climbing. It keeps us on our toes and is rather stressful. You can make it halfway up the stairs in the blink of an eye. Or, you crawl over barricades or up on chairs. It's exhausting. Like Claire, though, you're not very into walking. Claire didn't walk until 19 months; I fully expect you'll be walking before then, but you're not just chomping at the bits yet.

Not the intended use of this swing, Lily. Also, you did this while I turned around for ONE MINUTE.

And here, Daddy looked away for ONE MINUTE.

All the climbing. All the time. *Note: I was standing right next to you here. You weren't in any danger.

You still don't have any teeth. I feel like I'm waiting on edge for a balloon to pop, waiting to see how you handle teething. I'm hoping for the best but preparing myself for the worst.

We've seen you really get into playing recently, and it is the best. You love to play kitchen at our play kitchen (and, incidentally, you really love unloading every kitchen toy we have onto the floor) and also to play "Where's Lily?" That's essentially peek-a-boo. It's fantastic! You cover your eyes and become oh so coy. My very favorite, though, was when I asked you "Where's Claire?" one day just wanting you to show me where Claire was sitting. You covered one eye like you do when we play peek-a-boo and you looked at Claire with the other eye. It was so precious. We also love to read Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? with you, because you love to join in when we get to "BOOM BOOM BOOM!" You go "buh buh buh!" and join in the fun.

Speaking of speaking, you say "Hi" all the time, say "da" happily to Daddy, and say "ma ma ma" when you are upset and want something. I love all of it.

Oh! Dancing is your jam. You will dance to anything remotely rhythmic: a song, a chant, whistling, clapping. Anything. And, your sense of timing is actually quite good. We're very impressed.

You're still eating everything we give you, and you usually tend to think we aren't feeding you enough or fast enough. You actually double fist when eating. Apparently, eating is your favorite. Also, you LOVE drinking out of reusable water bottles. You kept sneaking Claire's kids' Contigo bottle, so we got you your own. It might be your very favorite thing ever. When you first started drinking water, though, you'd take a big swig, smile because of how proud of yourself you were, and all the water you'd just drunk would dribble down your shirt. You've gotten better at it by this point...but you still do it for fun on occasion.

You are still just so sweet and easy going. Everyone comments on it (including Daddy and me almost every day). In fact, there's a nursery worker at church who often asks if you're going to be in nursery because she so enjoys holding and playing with you.

Lily, we could not possibly have imagined how much joy you would bring to our lives. You have been such a gift, and we could not be more grateful for your place in our family.