One Year

It's pretty incredible how quickly one week can turn into one year. In some ways, its hard to believe she is already one year old, and yet it seems like sweet Audra has always been with us. Maybe because she's always been in my heart. :)

I'd love to spend the rest of this post telling you about the fabulous day we had and how much fun Audra had on her first birthday, but the fact of the matter is that she was pretty much a grumpus all day today. I think it might be the teeth that are working their way out, but she was just not a happy camper and trust me when I say that is SO out of character for her. She is typically so easy-going and so smiley and content to just hang out wherever. Not today. Today nothing was right in her world. I hated that for her--it was her birthday! Her FIRST birthday! Maybe she was just getting the bad one out of the way so the rest of them can be AWESOME.

Yeah. That's what it was.

So, my Audra. My sweet, silly Audra. My Audra LOVES food. Loves it. When she was first born, and I mean as soon as they set her on my tummy, she started looking for food. She eats so much that I don't know where she puts it. There are times when her stomach just doesn't seem phyically big enough to hold all of the food she eats. And yet the one, the only sign (language) she knows is "more."



She does have good manners, though and remembers to pray before she eats...and at least 2 times during the meal....and typically afterwards, too. :) (She puts her hands on her ears because the kids usually use their folded hands to cover their eyes)



Audra loves peek-a-boo and has for a long time. She thinks it's one of the silliest things and does her cute little giggle every time. Lately, we've had a play tent set up and she hides inside and uses the tent flap to play peek-a-boo with whoever is around. This is her playing peek-a-boo with a blanket she got for Christmas.



Audra loves music. I've always hummed to her before laying her down for naps and bedtime and somewhere around 6 months old, she started humming along with me. It is soooo sweet! I treasure those moments with my little girl snuggled into my shoulder, humming along with me to her bedtime lullabye. I think that is going to be one of my favorite memories of her babyhood. Now that she's older she sways to the music when she hears a good song. She also likes to jam along to her own melodies on the piano. It's too bad she doesn't have very much hair because sometimes she's all into headbangin' to the beat! Some of her favorite songs to get her moving are: Twist and Shout, Mozart, Upside Down, Lollipop (we sing "Bunny Hop" to the tune of this and she makes her Bunny Hop dance...very cute!) and anything with drums. :)

Almost every morning Emilia eats a bowl of cereal for breakfast. And almost every morning Audra crawls over to her for a few bites. Emilia, ever the mommy, shares a few spoonfuls with Audra, who is almost always mad when the bowl is empty. The funniest part about this exchange is that I have TRIED to just feed Audra her own bowl of cereal (same cereal, same milk) and she won't eat it. Its always better when its someone else's, right? Speaking of milk, it makes Audra's day when she finds Emilia's almond milk somewhere. She'll chug that almond milk down so fast because she knows someone's going to take it away from her when they find out. And once you spot her, she'll watch you out of the corner of her eye as you walk closer, all the while gulping down as much almond milk as she can in those last few seconds!

Audra LOVES playing in the play kitchen. Mostly, she likes to have a cup (or bowl) and a spoon and stir. And stir. And stir. I don't know what's so fascinating about stirring, but she will do it for a loooong time. She does this in the bath, too. One day she sat in the tub for 20 minutes with the same cup and spoon, just stirring.

Audra is a daredevil. She laughs and giggles and squeals when you toss her in the air or flip her around in your arms or swing her in the air.

Ever since she was a baby, Audra has been fascinated by the popping noise you make with your finger and your cheek--do you know what I'm talking about? She loves that sound!! She will look at you with this expression of awe and wonder and then smile and giggle and flap and squirm until you do it again. In the last month or so she's started trying to make the noise herself. It doesn't really work out, because she doesn't know how to puff her cheek out, but she'll stick her finger in her mouth and pull it out really fast and then grin from ear to ear because she knows she hot stuff!

Audra's newest "toy" is Emilia's toddler bed. She climbs up in the bed and snuggles down into her pillow and has this huge smile because she's so pleased with herself. And then she sits in the bed and plays with whatever toys are around. The first few days she also "played" with getting up and down, but now that she's mastered that (FEET FIRST!) just plays to her hearts content in her sister's big girl bed.



In a lot of ways, Audra's first year has felt like the first year of Micah's life was to me--a blur. There's been so much going on with homeschool and re-doing part of the house and surgery and all of the rest of LIFE that just keeps truckin' on. I've tried to treasure her babyhood. I KNOW I've enjoyed it all--she's such an awesome, happy, smiley, cheerful little girl, there hasn't been much to not enjoy about it! But it's gone by so fast. My memory is hazy at best, but these are the things that stand out in my memory of my first year with Miss Audra:

* how we struggled to find the perfect name for her. We had a list of three or four girl name options when we went to the hospital (thank goodness she wasn't a boy because we didn't have ANY boy names), but none of them seemed just right for our new baby girl. We had 4 baby name books with us that we spent HOURS reading. We'd like the meaning, but not the name. We'd like the name, but it was in the top 10. We'd like the name, but not the meaning. Or it was too long. Or too short. Or one of us would like it, but the other wouldn't. Or we're just too picky. :) In any case, all of Audra's hospital tests are under the name "Baby Girl Mustaleski." And then we found Audra. It was almost Audra Brianne, but we didn't like the initals and I REALLY like the name Elise (John wouldn't go for it for a first name) so Elise was the middle name.

Audra (Noble strength)
Elise (God's promise)

Because she was so strong. So big for a newborn. And because I was so worried about delivering in the hospital and God had promised it would be ok. And it was. So she is our strong, noble girl. Our promise from God. Our Audra Elise.

* Audra had to be put under a body warmer because she wasn't maintaining her body temperature. She took full advantage of all the space she had now that she'd been born and s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d full out under that warmer like she was suntanning. It made me laugh everytime I looked at her!



* Her wrinkly newborn feet.



* Laying on the couch, snuggling my newborn baby girl and crying because I knew it was the last time I'd get newborn snuggles from my kids...Ah, those stupid changing hormones. :)


* Carrying her in the moby wrap. She LOVED it. I would put her in there and she would just snuggle down and sleep for HOURS. I went hiking with her in there. I went to a consignment sale and stood in line for over an hour with her in it. I cleaned, I played with the kids, I ate, I gardened. She loved being snuggled into me. And I loved that I could carry her around and still have two hands!


* Confusing Emilia's big baby doll for Audra...for just a split second. It happened to me several times and I know it happened to John and my mom, too! They were about the same size, but I'd just catch a glimpse of the doll and think...what in the world??? But then I'd realize it was a doll and not Audra. :)


* She smiled right from the get-go. It was hard to tell when she started smiling "for real" and not just because things were moving along inside. This is Audra at 10 days old:


* Audra didn't sit up for a long time. In fact, she crawled before she sat up. I thought that was strange, but her pediatricion said not to worry--she obviously had muscle strength and she'd sit up when she was ready. And she did...eventually.

* Her first teeth showed up at 8 months old. And she still only has those 2 teeth. This morning Dr. Abby said she's working on 5 more on one side of her mouth (Audra wouldn't show her the left side!) so it would seem we've got a case of popcorn teeth on the way!


* She would lick her lips and smack her mouth when she was getting ready to nurse.

* She doesn't put a whole lot in her mouth, you know the random things babies find on the floor...at least not yet. Maybe she will with all of these teeth coming in, but what she really likes to do with her toys is pass them back and forth between her hands and show them to others.

* She really loves to roll a ball back and forth with someone else. It makes her giggle and her giggle melts my heart. I love it.

* She has always liked to sit and watch the other kids play. When she was awake and I was holding her she would squirm if I turned so that she couldn't see them. She just wanted to be able to see what was going on!

* When she's done eating, she almost always grabs one more bite for the road as you pull her out of the highchair.

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And now she is one. Her first birthday wasn't all bad, though. She found some redeeming value in it when we got to the cake and presents part of the day. :) She got "BabyHop" (a baby bunny) whom she also loves dearly.



And she got a baby doll that laughs. She really likes her baby doll. She loved on it all the way to bedtime and John said it was the first thing she went for when she got up this morning. And, of course, Emilia is always there to step in when Audra's mothering skills are lacking. Ha.




And then there were cupcakes. Audra got to eat her very own chocolate cupcake. What's not to like about that? Once she got over that I wouldn't give her the flaming candle, Audra decided there wasn't much not to like about cupcakes!!




Happy, happy birthday, my sweet Audra. You are the perfect completion to our family. I am so thankful that you are here with us and that we get to share our crazy family life with you. You've added so much love and happiness to my life. I am blessed to have you as my daughter, I thank God for each moment I get to share with you and I love you more than words can say.