(A lot of) thoughts on the birthday girl.

One year.
Seriously?

Sheesh.

It's been a challenging year, that's for sure. Callie may be a little high maintanence but I've learned a few good lessons from her.

I've learned that I can be pretty judgemental but I understand more now that there is no one right way to be a mom. If you would have asked me when Jenna was one, how I felt about babies that age who still woke up in the night, who didn't fall asleep on their own and fussed all the time, I would have said that I would never tolerate that behavior; the mother must be doing something wrong. She needs to let that baby cry it out. Does she want to have a three-year-old who still wakes up in the night? It's gotta stop sometime. That baby's not getting enough sleep.

And now that baby belongs to me.

Yes, Callie slept through the night for the first time when she was 8 weeks old and yes, for the most part she has continued to do that. However, she doesn't usually fall asleep on her own, has a hard time falling back to sleep if/when she wakes up at night, and rarely sleeps longer than an hour during the day. I don't know why it's like that, but it is. And until a few days ago, it's been (sort of) okay with me. But I realized last week that I am tired. In all ways, I am T to the IRED. And so, we're working on things. For example, for the past week or so, I've let her cry at bedtime and for the past two nights she's been asleep within five minutes. MIRACLE.

I've done other things with Callie that I never would have done with Jenna: rock her to sleep, give her a bottle in the middle of the night, let her sleep in our bed, stay up past 7pm, eat chocolate, etc. But I'm learning that each kid is different. You can't do with one what did, or do, for the other because it just might not work. I can't be the same kind of mom with Callie that I was with Jenna. It just doesn't work for her.

But what does work is that she fits perfectly into our little fam. She is the cutest baby I know and the snuggliest thing ever. I don't even know what to write to explain the love I feel for this girl.

My little cupcake...

• weighs 22 lbs, 14 oz and is 29 inches long.


• loves to be with her sister and sometimes likes to tease her by going after whatever it is Jenna is playing with. She will go after Jenna's block castle, even if I've given her a pile of her own to knock down.


• loves baths and doesn't mind it when I dump water on her head.


• is a good eater and will eat anything, including London Broil that she had at my mom's house. Blueberries and strawberries and pasta are favorites.


• smacks her lips as she falls asleep.


• has hair that's coming in curly.


• has huge eyes like a gloworm and cheeks like her mom.


• makes a beeline for Jake when he walks in the door and whines until he picks her up then rubs her face in his shoulder.


• has not become attached to any blanket or stuffed animal but she will snuggle a hand, foot or leg. If I'm doing my hair or the dishes, she'll come up behind me sometimes and bury her face on the back my leg. At the library, she once crawled up to a total stranger and rubbed her face all over the top of the poor woman's foot. Gross. And weird.


• can say, "I do," "uh oh," "mama," "dada," and "no." Not consistently, but enough to be official.