My dear sweet Anna,
Here we are, just a few short days from your first birthday,
and I am overcome with a bittersweet sadness that your first year has slipped
by. You came into this world quietly,
and so quickly after your arrival I felt like my life was full of so much noise.
So much emotion, so much chaos, so much, so much, so much. And so I turned to you, hugged you close,
and escaped to moments of sweetly snuggling you. While it’s true you needed me to survive (I
was your only food source for a while there), I think it’s safe to say that I
needed you. You were my security blanket
and you gave me solace in your little baby smiles, squeaks, and squeals. Anna, you are without a doubt the easiest baby this little Judy family has
had. I often say, God gave me an easy
baby because He knew I couldn’t handle anything other than that this year. But really, God knew what was coming, and He gave
me you. He knows what we need.
I may not have recorded all the exact moments of each
milestone this year. Your stats from
each check up are buried somewhere in the stash of papers shoved into your (currently
empty) baby book. Your sitting,
standing, and crawling dates are tangled in the depths of my tired brain. I may not have written it all down, but I was
there. I watched it all and experienced
so much joy watching you grow from teensy, sleepy newborn to chubby, noisy, on the verge of toddling little
Anna (who is currently standing at the train table, pointing at me, and yelling
“Daahhhhhh!”). Love you, banana
girl. You are my sunshine.
*Photos taken in May 2013*
