First, I want to say thank you so much for all of the love sent Charlie’s way for her first birthday!  We had such a great weekend celebrating our little girl and I really am just so in awe of how much love you all have for her.  And now we enter the tricky terrain of toddler hood.  Oh boy!

Eric and I took her to the doctor for her one year checkup on Monday.  She is 29 inches long, 21 pounds and still has an itty bitty head coming in at 17 inches.  But in contrast to a year ago, she has grown so much!  Her head has grown 4 inches, she’s gained almost 15 pounds and she is 9 inches taller than when she was born.  It’s astonishing how many changes they go through in just one year.  The doctor was really happy with her eating habits and all of the things she recognizes and points to.  She also told me just to keep nursing her if I want and give her whole milk whenever, so I’m taking a more relaxed approach to weaning.  As in I’m not even going to bother with it because I have no patience.  So yea, I’ll be that weirdo nursing a 29 inch child.  OH WELL.  She had to get her first round of the MMR vaccine and some other needle, plus get blood drawn from her little finger which was just TORTURE because the way they get the blood in the vial is to continually squeeze the finger and scrape the vial on her finger.  I don’t know but that just doesn’t seem to be the best way to go about that?  But what do I know.  We had to deal with a LOT of screaming and a lot of tears.  From me included.  What a traumatic experience.  But now, god willing, we won’t have to visit the doctor again until she’s 15 months old!

The only good thing about shots is yesterday she actually slept until 6:20 AM (after waking up once at 4 to eat, home girl is never going to sleep through) so for the first time in a long time my alarm woke me up.  BUT NOT TODAY!!  Today we woke up at 5:19 AM!  HOORAY!  I brought her to bed with me hoping she would just lay down with me until 6:00, but she decided she was going to sit up and slap me in the stomach until I said ouch and she laughed.  Over, and over, and over.  There is a lot of hitting that goes on in my house before the sun comes up.  I’m going to get bruises from this kid.  We had our scrambled egg together at 6 while we watched Chuggington (CHUUUUGINGTON! CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA CHIGGINTONNNNN!) so it’s kind of nice that we get to spend some time together before I leave for work.  Maybe that’s why she insists on waking up so early?  BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME!  The doctor told me there is NOTHING I can do about her early wake-up and suggested that we put a toy she won’t choke on or a small book in her crib to see if she will entertain herself for a little while, so I might try that tonight.  With my luck she’s just going to pick it up and throw it at the wall and then scream.  But we’ll try anything, right?

And now it’s time for me to go.  Need some coffee.  In my veins.