Hello daughter.

Today is your first birthday.

Someday you’re going to understand this, but today’s milestone is as much a celebration of you as it is your mother and me.  Because we have kept you alive, despite your many attempts to the contrary, for an entire year.

It’s been a year of 3am bottles and the daily praising of our Baby Brezza machine.
A year of starting each day by trudging up and down our stairs, carrying you in my arms while you giggle and hold onto my neck.
A year of strange and sticky diaper spackle, and the eventual shift from “Aww look, she has a little poopie!” to, “Seriously.  I am handling human fecal waste right now.  I may never be clean again.”
A year of Taylor Swift, Sesame Street, Baby First, and your most recent favorite, The Ba-Ba Dogs.
A year of unjustified medical worries, and of countless thankful prayers for what a healthy little girl you’ve been.
A year of Sunday Whole Foods trips, of random strangers being struck dumb when they look at you and who can’t help but say aloud how gorgeous you are.
A year of hearing your voice. Your babble.  Your laughter.  Your regular exclamations of, “BA! BA! BA!”  And yes, even your angry howls.  Some might argue that having a baby marks the end of peaceful, quiet household.   But I’ve never heard a sound as calming, or as beautiful, as when I listen to you happily singing to yourself.
It’s been a year of watching you grow, and learning the strange parental dissonance of being both happy that you’re doing so, and concurrently wistful of days gone past.
A year of becoming closer with your grandparents.  Your mommy and daddy are gaining new appreciation for what they went through when we were little.
A year of morning walks, nightly baths, poster scratching, head bumps, park trips, SnugaMonkeys, Joovy Boobs, and more and more and more…

It’s been a whole year spent with you.

And it has been the best year of your daddy’s life.

I love you so very much, my daughter.

Happy first birthday.

-Dad-