Dec 2, 2009: Happy First Birthday, Annelies!!!

She is ONE!!!!

Unbelievable that one year has passed since Annelies was born. In some ways it went really fast, in others it feels like we have lived a lifetime. One of Annelies' birthday presents was her 1 year checkup with the pedi. Since we are traveling within a week I asked to move her shots to next visit. That way we can be sure she will not have any residual effects from them.

Her stats are AWESOME: 95th percentile for height, 75th for weight and 25th for head circumference. This on the "typical" charts. Dr H (the pedi) is super impressed with how Annelies is doing. She is cooing a lot and says "Hi" appropriately (like when we say it to her), and is starting to wave. We have not done a lot of signing with her, because we need to lear ourselves, something I am planning to focus on more this upcoming year. She sits up and gets herself from sitting to laying down position easily back and forth. Today she said "Bye" (or at least, it sounded like it to Aaron and I). She is crawling, just needs to figure out that it is faster to crawl then to roll to places she wants to go. She babbles a lot, all syllables, with intonation. She will begin with Eric, the ST who has been working with Marco, in January. (When Marco turns 3 his services will mostly come from the LUSD (School District). So I already put in for Annelies to get that spot with him. I learned, above all, to be aggressive, proactive and organized on behalf of my kids. This has helped me with work too, so that has been a good side effect :)

Enclosed are a couple of pics of Annelies and Marco in bath on the eve of Annelies' B-Day.