An exhaustive list of my vocabulary, and some footage of me walking!

Hi everyone!

Now that I'm a year old, I'm really off to the races.  Pretty soon I'm going to be hosting impromptu walks and speeches with my newly acquired skills.

Here are some pics from the last few weeks:

Dinner at Raymond's

In my vroom vroom!

Doing art with Paula 

At the park with dada (clearly we are a little ahead of park season)

Also, here's me on the move:

I also have a pretty extensive vocabulary (noting this all "for the record"):

• mama, dada, mimi (often said while holding the phone- guess she knows who mama spends the most time talking to)
• car, vroom vroom: I like to keep an eye on things in this new suburban neighborhood of mine. lots of cars!  AND now I have one of my own (thanks, grandma)!
• Hat (pronounced hot): I love my hot, and really any hot!  I love when other people try on my hat, and when other people have hats so that I can take them off.  Sometimes I call my bows hats, because, after all, they are on my head, just like my hots!
• baba!  This is a work with many different meanings.  First, baba is the obvious bottle.  Love babas, especially when I see other babies with them.  I also call ducks babas, and tend to shout it confidently.  BABA!!
• Baby: I love pointing out other babies!  In my world, babies are everywhere.  They're on my yogurt container, they're in books, and they are on the streets of Ridgewood.  They're even kids who are 10 years old- anyone who's not an adult is a baby.  I even have a baby of my very own that I like to keep an eye on. She wears a hat!
• ney ney: horsie!  This is a new one
• hi: I like to say hi to everyone
• agua and yum yum: you need to be able to tell people when you'e hungry and thirsty.  I sometimes like to walk over to the refrigerator and shout YUM YUM so people really get the message
• up/down: i'm working on these- my delivery isn't perfect yet, but I know that up means go up the stairs and pick me up and down means let go of me i've got things I've got to get to on the ground
• bye bye: this is hot off the press.  I tried it out tonight twice, but will need to practice a lot more
• ojo: spanish for eye (forgive the spelling, my mother took French). I used to poke people and my baby doll in the eye, but I am less interested in eyeballs than I used to be (cars are more interesting)!

Well, that's it (for the record)!  Mom should be putting this stuff in the baby book, but she is making me do all the work.

Lots of love,

Gillian

Happy Birthday to me!!

Hi everyone,

What a busy month this last one of my first year has been!

First, we moved to NJ!  I love our house and in honor of my new pad, I tried out some new tricks, including the one below:

This is me walking, which is not totally clear based on yet another terrible job videotaping from my parents!

I actually hate walking and haven't done it since this video.  I can get places so much faster by crawling and being carried!  I do, however, love to climb stairs, which there are plenty of in our new home.

We also joined the kids gym so that I can stop being such an antisocial hermit (thanks, mom)! I love the trampoline, though circle time just doesn't make sense to me. There are so many fun stations, including a ball pit which may like a germ pit to the outside observer, but is really fun!  And i also hung off a bar, swung on some swings, and crawled through a tunnel.  Can't wait to go back!

Here is a link to my 12 month pics or you can buy them here!

Last night, we had a birthday celebration with me, mama, and dada and a cupcake just for me! And, Mimi and Papa got me an amazing kitchen (that my parents spent 6 hours building to a 90% complete state) with my VERY OWN MICROWAVE!  I love my birthday!

Lots of love,
Gillian

Happy First Birthday to Our Little Angel!

Hi all,

It's me, Morgan/Mom here.  Gillian will be back shortly, I am sure, to recap her 12th month, but I wanted to mark this very special day with a quick reflection on the last year.

When you're pregnant with your first child, moms and dads who are "in the club" lovingly share their congratulations and exchange knowing looks while saying things like "Get ready!" or "Being a parent is the best." 

No piece of advice could have prepared me for the love that I feel for this baby and the joy that she has brought me and Chad each and every day. I couldn't have known what it would mean to be amazed every day. Gillian took a few steps last week and it was pretty amazing- but no more amazing than hearing her say "hiiiii dada", or when she pulled herself up to stand on the crib for the first time, or smiled, laughed, pointed, or put her head on my shoulder for the first time. It is just the best to be amazed by our baby every day.

Happy First Birthday, Gillian!

I've already written Gillian an email (though it may take 30 years to make sense to her), so I need not go into greater detail here.  But let the record show that Chad and I are overjoyed to celebrate our little Gillian's first birthday, and can't wait to see her grow (but please, not too fast).

lots of love,

morgan and chad