Wow, a whole year has gone by! I spent the last few days constantly thinking about this time last year. I kept remembering how pregnant I was, and how I couldn’t wait to meet my baby. I remembered walking around Jeremy Ranch in the nice cool fall weather. I thought about Becky and all my visits to the Birth and Family Place. I have fond memories of all of it–but I feel completely at peace with never doing it again.

The night before Nora’s birthday Scott and I watched the video of Nora’s birth. I am so glad that I have it on video. I was impressed watching it with how calm and quiet I was. I didn’t feel quite that in control I felt more nervous this time watching Becky having to give Nora some rescue breaths. It’s funny, because I know the outcome is good now, but watching it again I couldn’t help but think about the other outcomes. Now I really know how much I had to lose.

Nora has been a joy this past year. I couldn’t have asked for a better, happier baby. I was so lucky to be blessed with such a calm, sweet baby! The last few months she has gotten much more active and much more opinionated, but knowing my other 2 kids I don’t think it could be any other way

Nora still doesn’t have any teeth. She still has an adorable toothless grin. She isn’t walking yet, but in the last week she has started going from sitting to standing in the middle of the room without holding on. It is so cute. We always cheer for her when she does it. Now every time she stands up she looks at us with this little expectant grin waiting for us to cheer. She has some definite words now. “Uh-Oh” was her first word, and she said that quite a while ago. Her next word was “Da-Dee” (of course but I have been working with her and she started saying “Ma-Ma” this week too. She still doesn’t sleep through the night regularly. She will go a few nights without waking, and then wake up a few times the next night. It is hard, but I know that this too shall pass. I am still enjoying breastfeeding her, and she is still happily nursing. She had a little period where she was really distracted and only nursing a minute or so at a time. I was thinking she might be weaning, but she is back at it again. I am happy, I am not ready for her to wean yet

I can’t believe that my baby is one! Sometimes it is hard to know that I will never have another tiny baby. I won’t go through all the new baby “firsts” again. But, I know that our family is complete and I am happy with that. I know that I am moving into a new phase in our lives. We are out of the baby phase and moving into a new phase where we will all be able to do things together. I am looking forward to all of us being able to ski together as a family. It will be so much fun when we can go mountain biking together. This phase of our life has been sweet, but I know that the next phase will be sweet too.