My baby is one.

It blows my mind how fast time flies. I know that we all say it and everyone experiences it but it still absolutely throws me for a loop. Four years ago I didn't even have the prospect of a family of my own and now I'm married to a wonderful man and we have a gorgeous one year old daughter. It just...yeah...blows my mind.

So a year ago today I was recovering. I remember being a mix of so many emotions, exhaustion, awe, nervousness, fear, shock, pain yet relaxation and above all that a huge swell of love for this tiny 7 pound being. I honestly couldn't get over how beautiful she was. The fact that the little baby I was holding had been inside of me for 9 months and had come out so perfect was astonishing...if I've ever been aware of life being a miracle before it was dwarfed by that moment. I remember just staring at her for what seemed like hours marvelling in the fact that this was a baby I didn't have to give back. I'd spent years cuddling, rocking and loving babies that I always had to return...but this one I could keep. I would have to watch others say goodbye to her but it wouldn't have to be me.

Over the past year Arielle has taught me so much. I've been blessed to be able to learn new things about her every day and in the meantime she is also teaching me things I didn't know about myself. She's helping me to gain confidence in my own instincts and stretching me to be a fuller version of myself. I can't imagine my life without her and have had the privilege of living the best year of my life, thus far, with her. Jonathan and I sometimes can't believe that this beautiful girl with the sweet spirit, bright smile and infectious laugh is actually our little girl. She's this interesting blend of the two of us and not a day goes by that I don't continue to wonder what else she is going to teach me about her little personality. This is what I've learnt so far...

1. She is a little communicator. She WILL let you know what she wants or what she is trying to convey no matter how long it takes you to figure it out. I remember driving to Morden with her SCREAMING in the backseat wondering how my perfectly content baby had morphed into a banshee over night. I sat in the back trying to calm her wondering what else it was I could do. Then I took away that piece of the car seat that is designed to hold the head in place and boom she's quiet. Like night and day she instantaneously stopped and probably rolled her eyes wondering why it took me so dang long to catch on. Now we are teaching her simple sign language to help her communicate and are rewarded with a HUGE smile when we figure out what she's saying. At the rate she's going I'm going to get full sentences out of her in no time...lol

2. She's very strong willed. Those of you who know me are laughing to yourself right now so I'm gonna politely tell you to cork it...lol Those of you who know Jonathan better are probably doing the same...yes we have ourselves a very opinionated communicator. However she does listen fairly well...if a reprimand is followed by praise when she does something right (ie. NOT dropping the piece of food on the floor when asked) she seems to understand not to do it again. Although she sometimes still tries to get away with it. That said she also has some rather amusing physical reactions when things don't go her way. If a toy isn't doing what she wants it to do she will prostrate her self on the floor her arms splayed out in front of her (as tho she is praying on a rug facing east :) and yell into the floor. If we pick her up to change her clothes or her diaper and interrupt her playing time then she kicks her legs quite roughly in protest. It's extremely amusing and sometimes quite difficult for me to keep a straight face.

3. She loves to laugh. Now she'll crawl along the floor and sometimes just laugh to herself as though she told a private joke. Other times she'll pull herself up at my legs and just laugh because she's feeling particularly happy at that moment. My favourite is her big belly laugh that happens mostly when I tickler her or nuzzle her neck. She seems to think this is hilarious and just can't seem to stop laughing, then when she anticipates it she'll laugh before I even get to her neck. It is just so exhilarating to hear her laugh. It can make my day exponentially better.

4. She seems to be a fairly content child. She likes to play by herself (even though most of the time I need to be within her view) and really likes to organize. The other day for over half an hour she moved leaves around the deck while on her car moving them from one chair to the other in fashion that made sense only to her...lol She is constantly figuring things out and when she realized she could put things up on tables and chairs she was quite pleased with herself.

5. She prefers to figure things out on her own. She didn't want help rolling over and only sat up when she felt more comfortable. From what I've witnessed most babies like to be helped to stand and walk by holding onto the figures of adults. While not my child, if you even try to help her stand or walk she'll go limp in your arms and try to sit down. As though she is saying "Umm no I'm not ready to do that right now so leave me alone." Once she does figure something out then she's got it down. It didn't take her long from being able to pull herself up to stand to going to walking around furniture. She even, at this point, will do some free standing, until she realizes she's doing it, then she promptly sits down. So I'm gonna sit back and just wait for her to figure out this whole walking thing, she'll probably do it better than me and then show me how to do it right. lol

Her first birthday weekend went off really well. Out of the two days we did manage to get the day when it wasn't pouring rain so while it wasn't as warm as I would have liked at least it was dry and we still got to sit outside for a bit. I'm hoping that next weekend when we celebrate again we will be blessed with more dry weather and maybe even a bit more sun. She loved getting into the cake and squishing in between her fingers. When I brought the cake out and everyone was singing I don't know that she was aware that it was about her. She loved the cake and went straight for the little pink flowers. There was no need to introduce her to taking the icing off she couldn't wait to get that piece of her own to dive into. I gave her a big one cause it was her birthday and I figured that one day I wouldn't worry about how much of a mess she made or the mass amount of sugar she consumed. It was funny afterwards she just lapped the living room a few times and then jumped in her jumper quite vigorously...it honestly was so funny she couldn't sit still for two seconds for a moment there I was worried we'd be up till 10 trying to get her to calm down but she seemed to crash right around her normal bedtime so that wasn't too bad. I loved that my parents and sister could come out and celebrate this day with us. We kept marveling at how different it was last year and how long we had anticipated their visits when Arielle was born and now boom she's one.

I love my little girl and I really couldn't have imagined a better child. She's napping right now which is allowing me the chance to get this all down before the rush of real life distracts me. I'm glad I've been able to share this year with those of you, friends and family alike, who seem to have enjoyed my hundreds of pictures and tens of blogs about Arielle...lol Here's to another year of interesting stories, pictures and a full life with the beautiful person that is my daughter.

Here she is diving into her cake...lol

Okay I absolutely love having my family here I really do. I want my parents to move here, not that I haven't said that to them a thousand times already but I still have to let it be known that my parents rock!

So they got here on Wednesday and after Arielle seems to love having them here too. She really does enjoy an audience so if there is an audience that gives her undivided attention (not to mention TWO big containers of new toys) then she's in heaven. She now has more Elmo stuff than I know what to do with and frankly my mom went overboard on the toys that make noise...I'm thisclose to calling her at 4 in the morning when she gets back and just play an Elmo toy over the phone as payback...LOL

Arielle's favourite thus far is the Elmo phone...it's a phone and it sounds like Elmo, her two favourite things! lol

I went to work yesterday for 8 hours which was weird, I haven't worked that long since I was about 5 months pregnant...lol My feet definitely had a few things to say about that when I got home. From the sounds of things Arielle had a blast with my parents, but she was still happy to see me when I got home so she hasn't forgotten me completely...lol I had a moment where I felt like I was 15 again, my dad dropped me off at work (Jonathan had our car :) and my mom made my lunch...boom I was a teenager again...haha

Today we are running some errands to pick up stuff for Arielle's first of two birthday parties. This Sunday is her party with my family at our house, next Sunday she gets a party with Jonathan's family at his grandparent's house...this is because Jonathan has a lot of family and they wouldn't all fit in our house...so thanks to his grandparents for the loan.

I'm going to go get ready while Arielle is sleeping just figured since I was somewhat inspired to write I would put a little blurb up so I'm not totally neglecting my blog...I'll try to write a fuller update after the dust has settled...just before it gets kicked up again in July when we fly to BC! :)

Here's my girl be ridiculously cute:

So I was thinking the other day...okay let me backtrack I was feeling guilty for not writing in my blog, for not working on a new story or at least working on stories I've already written and then it occurred to me that I wasn't getting ANYTHING done so I'm sucking it up and doing this one step at a time.

First step write a good blog entry...so here goes...wish me luck and I do the same for you cause I have no idea what's gonna come outta me in the next blurb...lol

So in the last month a few major things have happened. We finally moved into our new house and it is most definitely feeling like home now. We still have a few things to clean up and organize but it is vastly different and more improved than it was when we took possession. I love having my own house! I'm still rejoicing over the fact that I can do laundry whenever I want not worrying about tokens and dryers that don't shut off...it's honestly exhilarating...lol There's no one walking on my ceiling AND I have a dishwasher. Sure there's a yard to take care of and different expenses but frankly it's worth it, we were definitely done with apartment living! Onwards and forwards...speaking of...

I've also started back at work which was and is going quite well. I've gone back part time so I basically work about 18-20 hours a week give or take...it's a good set up; I work a couple of evenings, one weekday day and one weekend day so for the most part Jonathan can watch Arielle. Then for the one weekday I bring her over to spend some time with her friend Kai. (read: Krista babysits...lol) I'm at a new store so I had to get used to that although it hasn't been that hard of a transition. The staff is really quite welcoming (plus I've worked with my manager before so her way of running things is very familiar :) and I'm loving the fact that it is not a drive thru store. The hustle and bustle in a drive thru store greatly increases my stress, so I'm enjoying being able to focus on just one outlet for our wares as it were. :) I'm going to be going into a, hopefully, regular schedule after the hubub of summer dies down. Not that I'm complaining I love me some hubub, especially the upcoming kind.

Tomorrow my parents are coming over and I couldn't be more thrilled! I finally get to show them our house and they get to spend some time with Arielle. It's been four months and I'm pretty sure my mom is going through some major granddaughter withdrawal symptoms...this shouldn't happen again. I think we should see them every couple of months...or, you know...they should just move here...I'm only saying ;)

THEN on Saturday Julia comes out for a few days just to be here when Arielle turns one. Talk about your dedicated aunt!! Arielle's first birthday is this coming Monday and I can't believe how fast this past year has gone. It doesn't take much for me to remember when we found out we were pregnant, the first listen to her heartbeat and the first ultrasound and now BOOM she's one...it's been so fast and so precious and I'm so glad I live in a country that allows me the chance to take a whole year off of work to enjoy it.

Then in July right around my birthday, thanks to my very generous cousins, Jonathan, Arielle and I are flying out to BC to spend a week there with family...it's going to be so much fun. I'm interested to see how Arielle does with flying now and am not as scared of finding it out since I get to fly with Jonathan...that takes a lot of weight off of me...literally, cause then she can sit on his lap too...lol

So going into the next year I'm hoping to fall into some kind of routine. I'm going to enjoy Arielle as she continues on with all of her firsts...for example she can say 'more' and 'please' in sign language right now. For the most part she mimics me but she seems to really enjoy my positive reaction so I'm hoping for more comprehension into what she's actually saying...although that said I'm fairly certain she knows what 'more' means...lol Naps are WAY better than they were that I almost forget what it was like when she would only nap for 20 minutes...in fact her naps got better as she interacted more with the world around her. Nowadays we can go almost two and a half to three hours sometimes...It would be nice if we could go down to one 3 hour nap in the afternoon with her waking up at around 8 but I'm not gonna be completely unrealistic...lol

Anyway that's more of an update as to how life is going these days...ask questions if I missed something...it might prompt me to post another blog sooner...assuming you even like reading this...hahaha Here's a picture of Arielle being beautiful...as you can see she's working ever so hard at it :)