Wendy Week: a Chronicle of Firsts

The first year of a baby’s life is filled with so many ‘firsts’ it boggles the mind!  Even as fully invested as I am in her growth, I know I have forgotten more of them than I remember.  Still, recalling these  little and big milestones brings such delight!

Take today’s ‘firsts’ for example:  
She said “Ba” for ball . 
She rubbed Charlie’s back, when I told her to be gentle. 
She got her first black eye by tripping and falling onto the bathtub rim. 
She walked up to Charlie with her arms open, asking for a hug.  
She held my hand and walked all the way through the parking lot, down the steps and to our front door.  (Of course, she felt the need to investigate  a leaf, the crack of the sidewalk, and a splat of bird doo on the way!)

Not long ago, that same side walk gave her her first skinned knee:

…which made her crawl like this for a few days:

Incidentally, the discomfort of crawling that night motivated her that night to take her first steps!  
But before she could walk… First free stand!

And she didn’t really start walking seriously until after our trip to NC for Easter, where Grandma and Grandpa gave Charlie and Wendy their first Easter Egg Hunt:
(“Yes! All the pretties are mine!!!” … "What do you mean by, “those are Charlie’s eggs”?”)

Before Easter,  she learned to crawl,

 

..and got her first curl of hair

…and first taste of summer fruit along the way:

  

Spring brought Wendy’s first hike:
(who doesn’t love hiking barefoot?)First art project:

Winter brought Spring and was full of fun firsts! 

First Family Slide Ride!

First day at the Beach!
First two-piece swim suit!

First New Years! First Christmas!

Baptism,

Rolling,
Sitting!
    

And what fueled all that fun; all that development? 
Why, Chocolate Ice Cream, the perfect first food, of course!Just kidding!  The first (intentional) food didn’t come for several more month and was boring barley cereal—I think she liked the chocolate ice cream better!  Still, Wendy LOVES to eat!  Sometimes when she is eating, she gets so excited and smiles so big that her food falls back out of her mouth!

Which brings me to her first smiles:
Let me just say this about Wendy’s smile. It is like grace. It is like the gospel. When she looks you in the eyes and laughs, you cannot help but be overwhelmed, swayed, softened and changed.

   
Seeing Wendy’s smile for the first time, confirmed what was happening in our hearts.  Something about the first few weeks of a newborn’s life creates a time warp, I think.  I don’t know if it is the sleep deprivation, or the raging hormones, but so little and so much happen that it feels eternal and like a rushing freight train all at the same time.  Then again, falling in love can have that affect on you! Wendy’s second week of life included meeting her cousin and all three great-grandparents for the first time, her first wedding,  her first plane flight and her first bath!—That’s a lot for a week!    

Wendy’s first week was not less eventful (after all she was born in it!), but it did involve less long-distance travel.  Here she is getting ready for her first car ride.
(This was after her first ambulance ride and her first time being dropped out of an ambulance—which I did not document and let’s hope were also a ‘last’ experience!)

 

Wendy was welcomed home by Nana and Charlie and
    our neighbors.  Here is her first birthday cake (a home-made present from our neighbor, 
if you can believe it!) It was perfect!!!

This is how Wendy first met Charlie:
Weeks before her birth, in an attempt to help Charlie visualize what it meant to say that Wendy was going to be born soon, I told him that when little tiny baby sister came out of Mama’s tummy, he would be able to hold her hand.

The first time he came to see us at the hospital, he marched
into our room, located me and Wendy, climbed up on the
bed, dug through the blankets, extracted her hand and
gripped it tight before he even said so much as “Hi” to me.

He was a brother on a mission to meet this precious girl!

 

 

Which brings me to the beginning….the first first….
it all began with Wendy’s first breath:

What a beautiful sound it was when it finally came! Her Dada caught her just right with a towel from between my legs, laid her on our bedroom floor, rubbed her blue chest, and urgently said “Breathe, baby girl, breathe!” And she did. (Though, little spitfire that she is, this instance may also be the first, only AND last time she obeys him…)

And this long post would hardly be complete if I didn’t mention that she is our first daughter, too.  That’s a big first that keeps on firsting!  Welcome to the world and our hearts, Wendy Brielle Marzinke!