Rita's 1st Birthday

Dear Rita Marie,

Today is your first birthday. I cannot believe you are one year old already. The past year has flown by. You are such a good baby. You have slept through the night since you were 8 weeks old, unless you were having a growth spurt. Then you would wake me & Daddy up to feed you. Once the growth spurt was over, you went right back to sleeping through the night. It is hard for us to imagine you being small and helpless, you have grown so much. You are all over the place! You point to things you want, you yell at me "MUM!" when you want something. It's hard to believe that this time last year you had just entered our lives. You were a wrinkley ball of flesh that just laid there. Where ever we put you, you stayed. Not like now, we chase you everywhere! You laugh and smile all the time. You love your Daddy so much it makes my heart soar. You eat so much at one sitting we can't figure out where you are putting all the food. Sometimes you eat for an hour straight. We just keep putting food on your tray and you keep eating it. Where do you put it? You don't like having your diaper changed. You fight us tooth and nail! I keep explaining to you if you'd just get potty trained we wouldn't have to go through the diapering anymore. You just don't want to lie down when you don't have to. I don't blame you. You like exploring everything and everywhere. I put you on the toilet for practice and you love sitting up there. You look so cute when you read a book, you look just like Daddy. Being your Mom is the best thing to ever happen to me. It is so much fun. Even though somedays you wear me out I wouldn't change the sleep deprived nights, wiping food off the walls, picking banana chunks up off the floor and the nightly baths for anything. You are such a joy and now that you are reaching toddlerhood you are even more fun than you were before. You love to splash in your tub and sometimes you scream so loud with delight you hurt my ears. But it's all worth it. Every moment with you is the best moment of my life. Thank you Rita, for being my daughter. You are a gift from God. I'm really going to miss that 3 1/2 toothed smile you've given me for the last month.
Love, Mommy