Last weekend we had a big birthday party for Charlotte, Netta and Bailey. If you bring your baby's birth certificate in to Lund's you can get a free cake for your baby's first birthday, so we got three cakes.
Charlotte loves leaves. She and Pancho have an affinity for sticks. Whenever we pass a tree she reaches out to touch the trunk and will smile and laugh as she pats the bark and soaks up its texture. At our nearby park she will roll onto her back and look up the leaves against the sky and smile, babble, and laugh as the trees sway in the wind. Next to Charlotte's changing table, Emily put some decals up of a giant tree with birds and flowers. Charlotte stares, laughs, points, and babbles at the decals. She will even happily say "birdie" every now and then when we point and look at the bird decals together. Trees just might be her favorite thing.
And to top it off, she is tree-like herself. She is not exactly overly-mobile. Plus she is a giant, in the 95th percentile for height and weight, despite being born six weeks early.
I have come to realize she is an ent. And there are worse things to be.
Ents are by far my favorite of all the critters, creatures, and characters from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's been awhile since I've seen or readThe Two Towers. But if I recall correctly ents...
contemplate and deliberate before making a decision
are cautious
observe
are as natural as nature can get
prefer peace over war but will stick up for themselves
look out for one another
are fierce warriors when called to action (still waters run deep.)
are strong, sturdy, and stable, with a tough exterior, and are not easily rattled
are verbally intelligent and enjoy a good debate
yet are quiet and unassuming and do not seek attention or the limelight
are humble.
These are all values that I respect. Charlotte may or may not acquire these values, be it with or regardless of any influence we have as parents. But based on this one picture, it looks like she is well on her ent way.
Charlotte had her 12 month well baby visit today. She is officially a giant. She weighs 24 lb 10 oz and is 30.5 inches long. That's 95th percentile all around (head circumference too!). Since her last visit, she did some major growing but maintains her proportionality from a few months ago.
Can you believe it? Actually, I can. People always say it goes so fast, and it does, but I feel like I got to spend a lot of time with Charlotte and I really savored every moment. Last night, I made a video with highlights of her first year. The keen eye will notice a few things about this video: Charlotte was F-ing tiny when she was born; the proportion of videos from her first month of life compared to the other 11 months shows how completely enchanted we were with her, or it shows how we had more time to make vidoes when other people were caring for our baby; that we could not find the Flip camera when we got home from the hospital and did not find it until early 2011; Charlotte has always been very "vocal"; she is really funny; and Charlotte is no longer tiny. In fact, yesterday at the park we were on the swings with another mom and baby. She asked me how old Charlotte was and I said, "she'll be one tomorrow!" and when I asked her how old her baby is, she said 14 months. Charlotte was a giant compared to this other girl. Poor Charlotte, she is going to be the tallest girl in class, just like mommy. We'll see how tall she is when we take her to her 12 month appointment this afternoon.
By the way, I just learned that today is the most common birthday. Having something to do with New Year's Eve....
