Marigold is One!

Marigold is one year old!

Actually, she's one year + one month now! And holy moly, I can't believe we're past the one-year mark with another precious kiddo!

Marigold Claire, you are such a light in our lives! It's a joy to watch you grow, to watch you fall in love with your brothers, to watch you explore your world, and it's a joy to be your mom. What a gift you are to this family!

Currently, you love dresses and bows (which you hand to us and yip, "yeah!" . . .  this is your way of asking us to dress you up); you love when your brothers push you around in the little walker cart; you love bath time and all the splashing involved; you love oranges and bananas so much that whenever you see one in the kitchen, you shout and squirm until we give you one; and you especially love being outside! When you walk by the backdoor, you say, "yeah yeah yeah!" and furiously shake your head yes until we take you out or we say no, and saying no usually ends with a wailing Margo. My sweet little outdoorsy gal. You've also recently become interested in puzzles and fitting shaped blocks into one of those shape sorter things. It's amazing to watch your baby brain make connections and learn new skills!

Since you started walking relatively early -- right before you turned 11 months old -- you are much more stable now, and you can even run when you really want something. This is especially comical when you're headed towards the stairs, or through an open gate (places you know are off limits), and we start saying your name to stop you. Instead of stopping, you startle a little and then take off running and giggling toward the off-limits thing. I can't handle the cuteness of your mischievousness!

We can tell you're starting to enter the picky phase with food, but you're still interested in most foods we put in front of you. Tonight, you gobbled up green beans, fresh mozzarella cheese, eggplant caponata, black olives, and ciabatta bread. Yum! Favorite foods include oranges and bananas, all the berries, smoothies, dips, cheez its, and all the other snacky things your brothers enjoy. Snack time is new for you. We've gone from 3 solid meals a day to 3 solid meals + 2 or 3 solid snacks. Which also means that nursing has cut back a bit. You still nurse first thing in the morning, before your naps, before bedtime, and a few other random times throughout the day, but the length of your nursing sessions have shortened recently. You get distracted by your brothers and wander off to play, and that's that! It always amazes me to watch the transition from fully breastfed to fully table-food fed. It's crazy how quickly table food takes over!

Speaking of nursing, one of my favorite parts of the day remains the 30 minutes of pre-bedtime ritual we have together each evening. First, you get your bath (every other night ish) + teeth brushing, then we head to your room for your last nursing session. And gosh do you crack me up. Through the whole 20-ish-minute nursing session, you need to hold something in your hand. That may be a book, a small toy, a stuffed animal, a random pencil that was left in your room, the wrapper from a piece of candy, who knows! But something has to be in your hand, and sometimes I'll present you 5 different options before you make a decision. After a few minutes, you drop the item and want something new. And this continues over and over and over until you're done nursing. Every night is different and the objects you want are unpredictable. It's pretty darn cute and hilariously random! After nursing is done, you get one book, one Twinkle Twinkle, and then it's lights out and good night.

You are still our sleeping champ, even though there have been a handful of not-so-great nights of sleep recently. (We think your emerging molars are the culprit.) Your usual schedule is: awake at 8am, nap 1 at 11am, nap 2 at 4pm, and in bed at 8:30pm. Right after you turned 1, we tried to get you down to one middle-of-the-day nap, but let's just say it didn't go so well. Your one nap was way too short, so you were exhausted and melting down all the time and we decided to just go back to two nap life for a little while, until you make it more clear that you're ready to change it up. Over the past few days, you've reeeeeally fought your late-afternoon nap (crying and protesting for many minutes before you finally pass out), so it may be time to try dropping it down to one again. But I'm gonna hold on a little longer since you are such a pleasant baby with all the sleep you get from two naps during the day.

Your nicknames have really evolved over the last year. We fell in love with your name, Marigold, for many reasons, one big reason being the nickname Margo. And while that is still your most-used nickname, it has led to other ones, from relatively normal and making sense to the just plain ridiculous. These include Margs, Margsie, Margo Moo, Moo, Moo Moo, and Moomie.

Your love language right now is kisses, kisses, kisses! And usually once you get going with the kisses, you can't stop. If Daddy and I are both present, you'll go back and forth between us giving sloppy, sweet kisses. Or if you're in the bath, you'll stand up, give me a kiss, then I tell you to sit down, you sit, but seconds later, you're up again for another kiss. So stinkin' cute.

Your brother John Paul is your favorite, and it's no wonder why! He is obsessed with you. He's almost like a little daddy to you. He'll snuggle you when you're sad, share his food and drinks with you, hold your hand and wander around the house playing with you. You share a special bond that absolutely melts my heart.

 Jude, on the other hand, is still warming up to you. He didn't like being kicked out of the baby role when you came along, and I think he's still trying to figure out what to do with that. He also doesn't like how you want to play with (or destroy) all his toys, so there's some frustration there for him. But then there are these little moments when we see how much he loves you, like how he has to kiss and hug you goodnight before he can go to sleep at night, or how he wants to sing bedtime songs to you, or how he shows you his toys and tells you about them. Your relationship with Juji continues to blossom and I bet it'll be extra awesome once you can really play with each other.

You have acquired several words over the last month or two, and it's so fun to hear your little baby voice rattle off random things throughout the day. Your current vocabulary includes Mama, Dada, Bro-Bro, hi, bye-bye ("buh-buh"), blueberry and blackberry (also "buh-buh"), bath ("ba!"), book, yeah, no, more ("muh muh muh muh"), ut oh, and car.

Marigold Claire, we love you so so so very much! All 21 pounds of you! Every last bit, from the top of your (possibly) red hair, to the bottom of your chunky little toes. God gave us the biggest gift when He gave us you! Our prayer for you is that you continue to grow into the beautiful, smart, kind, funny, confident, generous, amazing little girl that we already know you are.

To celebrate, we had a little party, just the 5 of us. We were originally planning to get family and Marigold's Godparents together for a tiny little 1st birthday party, but a certain pandemic put a stop to those plans. We still tried to make a big deal about it being her special day, despite all the weirdness going on in the world right now. She got her own personal homemade cake, made from strawberry puree and other yummy, wholesome ingredients. And boy did she devour it! She's our first baby who knew exactly what to do with her birthday cake. We got the photos to prove it . . .



And for dinner -- which we ate AFTER the cake ;) -- we ordered Five Guys, because Margo loves fries, and we went around the table all taking turns saying our favorite things about Marigold Claire. What a joyful, perfect celebration we had for our big girl!

Happy 1st birthday, Marigold! Here's to a great 2nd year ahead! We love you REAL big!