Birthday Baby Girl

A mother of mostly-grown kids told me the other day that the more babies you have, the more you wish they would stay babies a little longer.  I am finding that to be true.  I have enjoyed Eleanor's babyhood more than any of the others.  She's just  such a fun and sweet little thing, and something in me has finally come around to realizing what a short time babyhood is and I'm trying to learn to savor it a little.

Eleanor turned one today!  She's still a baby, but the time for that is getting shorter.  

I love how mystified one-year-old babies are for that first birthday.  They go along every day, following the usual routine and then BAM--  cake, candle, and "Mom's really letting me dig my hand's into this?"

It's hilarious.

Now, if you're my Mother or my Grandmother, you're probably noticing something right now.

Call me a narcissist, but I couldn't help myself.  Yes, that's me in the photo above.  Me, on my first birthday, in a little purple and white dress, with a kitty cake.

And I have that dress!  And I can make a kitty cake!  And I have this little girl.  So I did it.  I resisted the urge to make everything not-fun by trying to replicate the old photo exactly, but I just had to catch the similarities.  I only get one chance.

She's very much her sunny little self.  But she's wearing my oooooold dress.

I got her own high-fashion duds back on her after the cake, though.  She had that old dress pretty well covered with frosting.

Her Grandma made her a couple of cute little sunhats, and she looks adorable in them.  She wasn't too excited about having something on her head at first, but when sufficiently distracted, I found that she forgot about it and wore one for most of the rest of the day.  Call me shallow, but dressing her up cute is one very fun perk of having a girl.  (For the record, I like to dress my boys up cute, too...)

It was a fun day! And now my baby is a one-year-old.  Siiiiigh.