1st birthday!

Today Lily is officially no longer a baby, but a toddler.  Although that's the official age group that she has graduated from, she will always be my baby and nothing will ever change that.  She is now a tall 78cm, precisely 30cm longer than she was at birth, and she weighs a petite 9.22kg, 3 times as much as she did a year ago.  Although these statistics are concrete evidence of how she is growing, I still cannot believe that she isn't the tiny little baby that I gave birth to exactly a year ago today.  I'm going to be that stuck record again and say that I really and truly cannot believe how the time has flown... I honestly wish life came with an optional "pause" button.

So today was Lily's birthday and we woke up at 7am to a very happy, wide eyed little angel.  We came downstairs, had our bottle, waited for Granny and Grampa (Hertz) to come downstairs and for daddy to finish his conference call for work.  We then sat on the floor with all the presents and had a great time opening them.  Lily was very spoiled and absolutely loved everything from the trike Granny and Grampa bought her and the swing from mom and dad (her jungle gym is on its way) to the huge teddy bear from Great Granny and the wooden puzzle, blocks and farm toys from Aunty Lou and Uncle Rollie.  So very spoiled!

My lovely new trike!

 After her morning nap, we had some errands to run, followed by a lunch at Mugg & Bean with Granny, Grampa and Aunty Lou so Lily could play at the playground next door.  She loves it there and had fun riding the wooden horses and getting very dirty on the grass, in the mud, on the paving and touching bird droppings (much to my and my mom's delight!).  After lunch, Lily decided that she was having too much of a lovely birthday and she didn't want to waste any time having a silly afternoon nap.  I didn't feel like fighting with her either so the nap was forfeited and more time was spent playing before Lily's annual peadiatrician check-up.

The paediatrician check-up wasn't the greatest as Lily had to have blood drawn for the first time.  It was awful and Aunty Lou and Granny were besides themselves.  They were crying so very hard hearing Lily's screams from the waiting room.  I was a little bit braver but shed a few tears as well.  It's horrible hearing your child in pain and you cannot do anything to help her.  But we needed to have the bloods drawn as Lily had been fighting a fever 5 days ago and ended up with a rash which she still has.  We needed to get down to what caused the fever.  It turns out that she had a viral infection which her little body was fighting and the rash was a result of this.

Other than the horrible part of the doctor's visit, we were very proud to hear that Lily is doing brilliantly developmentally.  She is reaching all the necessary milestones and is a very happy, good and strong baby...erm, I mean toddler.  She is doing the cutest things these days from copying mom's ridiculous facial expressions to pretending to answer the phone when she hears one ringing (even saying her own version of "hello").  She also has a teddy bear that sings and speaks when you push its paws so now she thinks that all teddy bears do this and she goes about pushing their paws, not quite understanding why it doesn't produce the same silly sounds.  My heart can just melt at how precious she is.

The last year has truly been the most amazing of my life.  I wouldn't change it for the world.  Lily has brought so much joy and happiness into our home and is the center of our universe, and always will be.  I love her more than I can ever express and am so looking forward to watching her grow and develop into the truly amazing person I know she will become.