Miriam is one

Babies grow so dang fast.  One day you're wishing you'd go into labor and the next day they're going to college.  Well, close.  You have exactly one year of babyhood.  One year is not very long.  But by the end of one year, what you have is not a baby, it's a small person who very definitely has their own personality, preferences, and opinions, as well as some burgeoning independence and communication ability.

One year ago. Yes, really.

I remember when Michael turned one, I was kind of puzzled.  I hadn't felt like I'd had the chance to get to know him.  He was this constantly-nursing lump and then suddenly he was climbing stuff.  He wasn't very big on eye contact.  Or maybe I wasn't very big on eye contact.  Every moment he wasn't nursing was a moment I had to spend rushing around trying to get stuff done or pay Marko some attention.  Luckily Michael's next year was quite nice and I got know to know him much better before he turned two.  And it turned out he was a big enough personality by then not to get lost in the crowd.

Miriam, though .... bonding with her has been easy.  She likes to nurse -- there's been zero rejection of me, so that's nice.  But she also likes to play.  She's liked to interact, right from day one.

Remember the day she was born?  It was such a nightmare, Marko down with a stomach bug, Michael all up in my grill, the first contractions starting mere minutes after John had left for work.  But when I finally held her in my arms, I just felt so lucky.  I hadn't even wanted her, and here she was anyway!  She was even a girl, just like I'd hoped!  And as perfect as could be.

Those little legs! In those socks!  

The only grief she's really ever caused me is the no-napping thing.  That was rough.  I would have loved to have put her down and loved on my other kids at some point.  But, you know, it passed.  It all does.

Other than that it's been smooth sailing.  She nurses great, she eats solids now with gusto, she's passed all her milestones long before when BabyCenter says she's supposed to.  She loves her brothers -- as soon as she could crawl, she's been hurrying after them to join them in big-kid games.  If they're sitting on the floor, she walks up and plops down in their laps.  Most of the time, she's smiling.  She's better with strangers than either of her brothers were, though she has her limits.

And she has dimples.

Sometimes she doesn't go to bed at seven, when I want her to, but at eight or so, after the others have already gone to bed.  So to keep her from banging on their bedroom door, I keep her in my room.  She plays on my bed.  She likes to play peekaboo with the blankets and patty-cake.  Her top favorite game is "find the toy," where we hide it under the pillow and then she picks up the pillow and WOW!  There it is!  But kissing is a nice game too.  And fetch.  It's exhausting because I want her to go to sleep, but it's a special time too.

Their Christmas play

She can understand a lot of words.  I know she knows up, outside, ball, get, nurse, eat, food, cheese, tomato, chair, inside, brothers, potty, shirt, and bath.  She can sort of say dog, duck, kitty, kiss, Mama, and get.

I brought her to the store with me for her birthday to get her a present.  The plan was to get her a dinosaur so she can play with the boys and their dinosaurs, but she saw a rubber ducky that she liked.  I asked, "Do you want the duck?"  She said "DUT!"  Sorry, but I can't say no to a one-year-old who can say duck.  Could you?

Ah, that toothless grin of a few months ago...

She is a great deal of trouble.  That's standard in one-year-olds.  I've learned some things, though.  For instance, if she climbs on something, it's just stupid to get her off it and then go back to what I was doing.  Obviously she's instantly going to climb it again, and the more times she does it, the faster she's going to be and the more she's going to want to.  I have to childproof it right away, or else move her to a different room.  I didn't realize this as much with the first kid and I spent a lot of time dragging him out of the cat's litter box while saying "no" because I thought he could learn.  Ha.

She's definitely a lot like Marko, though.  Maybe less serious.  But then, Marko wasn't serious at one, that came later.  What she is, is very intensely interested in the things she's interested in, with no patience for snuggles when she's not in the mood.

I feel very lucky to have her in my life.  She's sweet, she's adventurous, she's fun, she's happy, she's intense, she's snuggly, she fits right in.  The timing of her birth wasn't perfect, but I wouldn't change it now.  If anything had been different, I couldn't have had her, and she's worth quite a bit of trouble.

At last, my daughter.  Miriam Rose.

Contemporary Miriam.