Rose Turns 1 Year Old

 

Our Little Miss Rose had her first birthday on the 17th.  It is amazing to me that it was just a year ago that we were driving to the hospital in Pomona and dropping Clara off to stay with my college roommate and best friend since childhood so we could go into the delivery room to be with Tabby during her labor and be present for Rose's birth.  Rose has filled our lives with so much joy.  She is such a goofy, sweet, playful little thing and we are forever grateful that she is ours.

At 12 months old, Rose has turned into such a little jokester.  She LOVES to tease and thinks she is hilarious.  She knows what it means to stick out her tongue and likes to blow bubbles and then cackle because she knows how uproarious we all find this.  She also likes to do naughty little things still like standing in the tub or trying to pull all the toilet paper off the roll while we are telling her "no, no" and she just giggles and persists.

 

Rose is teething again - it seems like she is always teething, poor thing - so she drools a ton and her naps have been off, but hopefully she can get through this next bout of teething soon.  In the meantime, she enjoys snacking on frozen peas and blueberries or munching on her fingers or other small objects to get some relief.  At least her nighttime sleeping is finally back on track and she goes down around 6:30 or 7:00 most nights (although it is work keeping her up that late) and wakes up around 6:30 most mornings.  Her daytime sleep is trickier - sometimes she refuses a morning nap or just takes a short one in the car while we are out and about.  It still seems way too soon for her to be going to one nap a day, but honestly that is really what she is starting to do.

 

Rose's hair has turned curly and it is darling - big soft brown curls, with one fat one right on the top of her head and lots of little ones at the back.  She still doesn't like me doing her hair and often yanks her bows out (a problem I didn't have as much with Clara) but we will keep after it because she needs it pulled back so her hair isn't falling in her eyes.  Besides, she looks so darling with ribbons in her pigtails. 

Rose started walking, really truly walking, just two days before Christmas, so about a week after she turned 11 months old.  And we are all so excited about it.  Clara loves that Rose can toddle around after her and Rose is ecstatic about the newfound mobility.  It is amazing how much her walking has improved in just a few short weeks.  I even took the girls for a "walk" around the neighborhood and Rose made it on her own for about 5 houses before she needed to be held. 

And somehow with Rose's new walking skills she has also found more of a voice.  She has started this new screeching thing and man alive is this girl loud.  Its usually just a playful, silly screech but her volume is such that sometimes Clara complains that Rose is hurting her ears.  She also toddles around the house hollering out "da? da?" all the time when Paul is at work, but especially when she first wakes up and right after dinner when she knows he is likely to come home.  She definitely loves her daddy and he is the first one she will give kisses to on request.  Her face absolutely lights up and she goes straight to him as soon as he opens the garage door when he gets home from work.

For Rose's birthday, we tried to do the traditional sneaking-into-her-bedroom-to-float-balloons-on-her-ceiling that we have done for Clara but Rose is a freakishly light sleeper and it woke up her and freaked her out, so we pulled the balloons back out and put them in the living room instead.  And oh my how she has loved those balloons.  We still have three that haven't popped that the girls have been playing with every day.

We wanted to do something special on Rose's birthday so I drove the girls to Happy Hollow.  Paul stayed behind at the house doing demo work on our kitchen while the girls were gone.   This was Rose's first time at Happy Hollow and she loved it.  And it honestly isn't so far - just about 38 minutes from our house - so I might even consider doing season passes again.

Rose loved the mini putt-putt ride with the police cars and fire engines.  There was hardly anybody there when we went so the girls rode it over and over.  They rode it together at first, but eventually I put Rose in her own car and she waved and grinned the whole time.

Rose's very favorite part were the goats though.  She cranked her volume up and was practically screeching her excitement, jabbering her baby talk and gesticulating with her hands.  She had no problem going right up to this goat and patting him.  I put a quarter in the feed dispenser and gave some to each of the girls.  Clara wanted nothing to do with letting the goat lick the food from her hand but Rose thought it was hilarious.  It was like she had a perma-grin etched on her face the entire time.  She even tried nibbling on a piece of goat pellet when I wasn't looking.

The one thing that Rose did not like at all was the carousel.  She could not get off that thing quick enough and was squirming and fussing the whole time. 

When we got home from Happy Hollow Rose got to open birthday presents.  She had no clue what that was all about but liked playing with the brightly wrapped packages anyway.

Do you see the mischievous look in her eye here?  This is SO Rose when she is being playful and teasing.

Rose got her very own mermaid doll.  She has been tormenting Clara ever since Christmas when Clara got hers.  Once we opened it to show it to her, she immediately took it gently in her arms and started kissing it and hugging it and she dragged it around with her by its yarn hair for much of the rest of the day.
 

She also got some other fun new toys, including a toy that spins when she pushes it on a stick and a ball pit that she and Clara have been having fun with.

We did birthday cake after presents.  Rose was into the candle and the singing, but when it came time to actually try the cake, she wasn't into it at all.  She tasted the frosting and made a face and then just wasn't really interested in anything more than that until I started feeding her spoonfuls of mint chip ice cream, which she loved.  So she basically had ice cream and no birthday cake, silly girl. 

And that was pretty much it for Rose's first birthday!  We are excited to see what the next year brings for our little miss!