happy belated birthday to our firecracker baby! you are developing such a fun personality -- you love to make us laugh by playing peekaboo, pulling duck faces, and crawling around with dish towels on your head. you scowl and squawk if you're displeased with something (usually Elizabeth encroaching on your personal space). and you chat happily to yourself while playing with baby dolls or wooden puzzles.
helping mama cook
you can stand up unassisted and keep your balance for quite a while before squatting back down and crawling off like a shot towards your next adventure. you haven't taken a step by yourself yet, but you still have time to beat the Will child record of walking at 13 months (Cece is on tenterhooks to find out whether you're going to steal that crown of laurels from her -- Elizabeth walked at 14 months and Greta at 15 months so we'll see!).
helping yourself to your sister's yogurt
you put anything and everything into your mouth. thank goodness you've only had one scary moment of choking, and even that wasn't a true airway obstruction -- you got a thick hairband stuck in the back of your throat and couldn't cough it out, so I had to do the baby Heimlich and put you over my arm and slap you on the back a few times until you dislodged it. even though you were still able to breathe through it all, of course it was scary and I was so grateful for the biannual CPR training we do at work with mannequins so that the muscle memory took over!
at your one year well visit, you weighed 19 lbs and were 27 inches long (50th percentile all around). you are wearing 12 month clothes. you say "mama", "dada", "this!" (while pointing imperiously) and "no". you love to eat -- PB&J cut into strips, all kinds of fruit, pizza, yogurt, and pasta are favourites. you drink whole milk out of a bottle and water out of a sippy cup. such a big girl!
you finalllllly (dare I jinx it?!) are sleeping all the way through the night after months of multiple night wakings. just within the past month you transitioned from waking up between 1-3 AM needing a bottle, to waking up needing your pacifier put back in, to waking up and putting your own pacifier back in. you and Elizabeth both sleep in our room still (in separate cribs) and I couldn't let you self soothe as much as I did with your older sisters at this age because then you would wake up Elizabeth. so your sleep skills have taken longer to develop but finally, praise God, we seem to be through the worst of it! (for now, haha... we're flying across the country soon to visit family so with the time change and travel all bets are off.)
on your first birthday, we continued our tradition of driving out for the Fourth of July festival in the town where your Pappy grew up and where we were married. you ate chicken BBQ and macaroni salad, then spent some quality time with family and ate most of the frosting off of your birthday cupcake. we sure love you, Victoria Anne!
reading your card from Cece, who also made you a headband
your mother forgot a bib so your father improvised.
birthday books from Aunt Patty and Uncle Larry
with your godparents -- and your new baby cousin, soon to make his debut!
then you celebrated back at home with presents from Grammie & Grandpa and Nana & Pappy. and your sentimental mother pored over photos and videos from the past year, reliving the joys and thankfully short-lived hardships. what strikes me most is the fact that from the very first day of your life, you have been surrounded by so much love. whatever the rest of your years may hold, I hope and pray that you carry that love with you wherever you go.
your very own couch from Nana & Pappy
super cute outfits from Grammie & Grandpa
your very own pop-it, which is definitely coming on the plane with us at the end of the month
Can you imagine that the sweet baby girl in the casts (I can't think of what it was called) might be your earliest walker? She's adorable and looks like a happy go lucky type of kid. Bonus points for a full night's sleep!
How is she one!? I feels like just yesterday she was born. Time really flies when you measure it according to a baby growing up. What a lovely recap, and what a joy to see her loving life. Yay for sleeping through the night!!!
welcome to the world, George Nicholas! our fifth baby was born two weeks early, completely upending my previous delivery pattern -- all of his sisters were born just before or up to 10 days after their due dates, except for Victoria with a scheduled induction at 39 weeks. a 39 week induction was the plan for baby boy too, and our dear friend Amy had requested the day off work to come doula for us again, bless her! my coworkers kept telling me I was going to go early with him and I kept confidently responding, "oh no, my babies like to stay cozy in here!" as I left the office on Friday (at 37 weeks 2 days pregnant), I told them, "see you Monday!" they all looked at me and said, "well... maybe!" and I reassured them that I would be there. the last "bump" photo I have, on July 4, just 9 days before baby would make his appearance! Amy texted me that weekend to see how I was feeling. baby boy was definitely sitting lower and I was having some inter...
for as long as I can remember, I've envisioned having four kids. to me, it seemed like a sufficient number of kids to emulate the big family feeling I so enjoyed about my own childhood. plus, I like the symmetry of even numbers. having grown up as the oldest of six, however, I thought I might not be cut out for being a mother of six, so four seemed to be the magical solution. the Geiger six at the wedding reception my parents threw for us back in Washington state. there is a 14 year gap between oldest (me) and youngest (Krista). do you see why we used to call her Pink Baby?! this is such a classic photo I had to include it, even though it was before Krista was born. I sewed my own dress if you couldn't tell. #homeschooled all that to say that after our fourth child, Victoria, was born in 2023, I felt quite at peace with our family size ... but not to the point of giving away all of the baby stuff. after all, I was "only" 37. we did feel strongly though that we should ...
over a year ago, we had made plans for Greta to go on a trip to Paris over Holy Week 2026 with her elementary school choir (pinch me now!). since Cece was going with Nick on an epic European pilgrimage in the summer of 2025, we decided it was only fair for me to accompany Greta. ;) also, Holy Week is Nick's absolute busiest time of year as a church musician and he definitely would not be able to take the week off to travel. a few months after sending in the deposit, we learned that not enough families had signed up and the trip was canceled, so our deposit was refunded. we both were quite disappointed! then Nick said that she and I should pick another place to go for a mother/daughter trip in its place. after much deliberating over various options, including a trip to NYC for shopping/shows, a visit to North Carolina to visit my sister and hopefully see one of the shows she and her fiancé are involved with in the local theater they run, a trip to the beach, or a cruise, Greta fina...
Can you imagine that the sweet baby girl in the casts (I can't think of what it was called) might be your earliest walker? She's adorable and looks like a happy go lucky type of kid. Bonus points for a full night's sleep!
ReplyDeleteHow is she one!? I feels like just yesterday she was born. Time really flies when you measure it according to a baby growing up. What a lovely recap, and what a joy to see her loving life.
ReplyDeleteYay for sleeping through the night!!!