Happy Birthday Baby

Dear Lauren,

Today is your 1st birthday! Your dad and I are having a hard time believing this day is here all ready.

The year has flown by, but at the same time you have changed so much. We have spent the year watching you learn, cheering you on and believing you are the perfect baby.

Today you change from baby to toddler. You are not walking yet, but you will be soon. You haven't said your first word yet, but it won't be long until we hear your voice.

You have four teeth and you're working on two more this week. Your hair is starting to curl and we are all wondering where you got that from and if it will stay like that. Your eyes are blue/grey just like your daddy's. People are always telling us how beautiful you are and of course we agree.

Your parents are so proud of you and love watching you grow and learn. You have made this year the best of our lives and now we wonder why we waited so long to have you.

Happy birthday Lauren!

Mommy and Daddy love you!

Nixing the Nap?

I have heard that around the 1 year mark babies drop the morning nap. I am starting to wonder how I will know when that time has come? The last couple of days she is only napping 45 minutes in the morning and afternoon. She has never been a long daytime napper but 90 minutes is usually where she averages. So when the naps start to shorten like this does that mean I should be phasing one out? I kept her up this monring until 11 a.m. (she usually goes down around 10 a.m.) thinking that she would sleep a couple of hours as a result, but instead she was awake an hour later. Hummm. So I put her back to bed at 3 p.m. so she could at least have a litte cat-nap to get her through to bed time. I'm a bit confused by this whole thing.

Note: I desperately want to keep both naps as long as possible, especially since we are moving next week and we could really use the sans-Lauren time.