On Saturday we had the big celebration of the birthdays. When she was born I was wondering how the birthday proximity situation would work out. It is like being twins but born 32 years apart and with a little more focus on one twin than the other. I like being the less focused on birthday person. The cake read – Happy Birthday Madeline and Daddy. Madeline was responsible for blowing out the single candle but she wasn’t likely to be able to figure out what to do. Luckily Judy sneezed and accidentally blew out the candle or we would have waited until Madeline finally figured out how to grab the candle while lit and tried to eat it.

That first year makes a big difference in the life of a one year old. She has changed from being unable to keep her head-up to a very solid walker. When she was born she would keep us up all night with a shrill cat like newborn cry. Now we just hear the cat at night mostly. Another big difference is the way that she goes to sleep. It used to be that if she was placed in her crib with no nursing or other aid to sleep she would cry incessantly until she was aided to sleep. Now when she is having trouble getting to sleep with us we place her in the crib, close the door, and walk away. It is like baking brownies in the oven. She goes to sleep on her own, if she is tired, within a few minutes.

Lately everything is a “GA”. I have found that as Madeline discovers language she lacks the basic understanding that different things have different names. So she will use the same name for multiple things. So she often will point to the ceiling, a dog, a cat, a toy, or some food and say “GA”. It is the universal noun for her. She also has taken the word for banana and when in a supermarket passing through the produce section will say “Na-Na-Na” until she is provided with either a banana or grapes. Recently we switched from feeding her grapes cut in half to the whole grape. It greatly reduces the time to prepare grapes to feed her. I think she prefers grapes over most fruits and even over cheese. It is nearly an insatiable appetite in comparison to other foods.

I am quite happy to have Madeline developing her language, dexterity, and personality skills. I feel as though lately we are more intellectually connected as we do things like working together to place the plastic rectangle into the castle with a hole for each shape or banging a ball with a plastic mallet through a hole into a ball run. On Saturday she started feeding her bear cup a part of her bagel into the mouth of the cup. So I opened my mouth and she fed me part of the bagel. I can see that light of understanding the world dawning within her and I get to be along for the ride to observe it. I’m sure within a few years I’ll be on a quiz show with her questioning everything including why there are words but this year with some conversations with Madeline it might be even more interesting than the last one.