First Birthday
It’s hard to believe, but today was little Z’s first birthday (pics here). Actually, maybe it’s more like it’s hard for us to get our heads around. Is it a whole year already? Has the earth actually completed an entire orbit around the sun since the light of our lives came into the world? So now we move from celebrating the little monthly birthdays to just years? Yet at the same time there’s also a feeling of “has it really only been a year?” It’s gets harder and harder to remember what life was like before she came along.
And what a week it’s been leading up to her birthday. She’s getting better and better at nearly walking, and she’s completely fearless about practicing. (JJ: heh, I actually wonder sometimes if she might actually be a little dense in this regard, like I was) She’ll stand up, take a few steps, do a wild gyrating splatfall, then get up and do it again. So she occassionally takes a couple steps, takes a fall, and some hard object happens to be between her and the floor. Last week it was the corner edge of the dresser, which turned out to be quite sharp and gave her a nasty-looking (though fortunately quite superficial) cut right down the middle of her forhead. A few days later it was a spill in the bathtub leading to a bloody nose (and an embarrassingly panicked father who was ready to take off for the emergency room). And a couple days later a crash into the high-chair resulting in a remarkably elevated bump on her forhead. And this is with supervision! Poor Deb is despairing of ever getting another pristine picture of Zoe. All I can is, babies are sure a lot tougher than they look.
But what a glorious time it is. Her babbles have taken on an oddly intelligent tone. They make no sense, of course, but she has these conversations with herself that use nuance, inflection, and humor, and it seems quite clear she at least knows what she’s talking about.
And this near-walking is just incredible to watch. Or, even better, to participate in: when she wants to go for a stroll, she puts out her little hand, with the firm expectation that you will put a finger out for her to grab onto. Finger in hand, she’ll happily walk from one end of the house to the other, or until something distracts her along the way. But the feeling we get when “holding hands” like that is really just priceless.
Every day just brings a new surprise in some capability, or refinement of technique, or emotional expression. It’s like a little daily gift from her to us.
I realize that I’ve gotten to this point without having written anything about her actual birthday – the friends who came over with their little ones to share the joy, who made the most amazing (and healthy for babies) little cinnamon-pumpkin muffins (thanks Julie!). So that tells me I should just close this post, and let Deb write something.
I’d close by just saying we both just feel so incredibly lucky to have her in our lives, it’s almost scary. And we can’t wait to see what the second year brings! 
