happy, happy birthday baby.

Dear Claire,
I had planned to get up early this morning and drink tea while I wrote about your first year. You had other plans. You woke me up to nurse even earlier than my envisioned morning tea time. This shouldn't have surprised me. You have been changing my plans since the day we met.

I know that our nursing days are numbered, and as I held you this morning, I studied you. You are becoming someone else. It is amazing.


Gone is the fragile baby that they handed me that morning a year ago. Gone is the babygirl that I was afraid to diaper. It seems that I blinked, and she is gone. In her place is this funny little person who demands eye contact and waves from strangers, who launches herself out of my arms to play with the big kids, and who picks up the phone, understanding that it goes on her ear (and then, excited by her parents' applause, puts the remote to her ear as well-in our house this constitutes comic genius).

You amaze me with the things you can do. The crawling, the attempts at language. There are moments when we crack each other up and I can't believe that someone so small can understand so much.

This year, you have learned some things. And I have learned some things. I thought that you had to have everything lined up in order to be a good parent. I thought that the room mattered and the gear mattered and the planning mattered. The books and websites don't prepare you for the exhaustion or the joy that comes with this job. Nothing I read adequately described the fun of watching you dance to your favorite song or tricking you into eating broccoli.

Everyone loves you, Pooper. Especially me.
Happy Birthday, Sweetgirl.
Love,
Mama