A first birthday

Poor Mia. In what may be a classic case of neglected-second-child-syndrome, it feels a little as though the milestone of her first birthday has been somewhat neglected. Her actual birthday was last week, on the day that we returned from holiday, but because we didn't get home until her bedtime we opted to delay giving her presents until the weekend when we were able to concentrate on her properly.

We had a slight mishap a couple of days ago when Harry decided to give Mia one of her presents early. To be fair he did ask us each individually if he could, but we were busy with other things and so he just got on with it and opened a present for her! We couldn't really tell him off because he was only doing it because he wanted her to have her present.

This morning we had a little cake and sang Happy Birthday before opening presents. We bought her a Peppa Pig ride on, cunningly purchased in the sales at the end of last summer and stowed away. We also re-gave her a doll that we had bought her for Christmas but she was too little for, she's a bit more interested in it now. To go with that she received from my parents a little pink pushchair and both sets of grandparents bought her some lovely clothes. More gorgeous clothes from my brother and some squeaky eggs from my sister made her a very lucky little girl!

We've been having a few lessons with Harry about how although it is important that they do both share their toys with each other, sometimes it is nice to give the birthday girl the opportunity to play with her own presents first before running off with them.

This last year has gone so quickly and Mia is growing up so fast. We stopped her bottles and night feeds a few weeks ago, and last night she even slept through the entire night until almost 7am (don't be jealous, it took Harry another couple of years or so to manage that from time to time, and he was up last night). She can stand up for quite a long time, and she cruises confidently, but hasn't quite managed those first steps yet. She has a mop of gorgeous messy curls on her head, and she beams with delight whenever she sees us.

She also has a few words, we think that her first word was Ha-ra (Harry) and she also says Da-Da in context, something that sounds a bit like Teddy and Ra-Ra-Ra for Ram's phone (because it plays the Wheels on the Bus go ra-ra-ra.) I love watching Harry and Mia playing and interacting together. Sometimes I can't quite believe how lucky we are!