My baby, the last baby I’ll have myself, is one tomorrow. I don’t know what happened, but it seems I nearly forgot it. Except not really. I just didn’t want to believe that it kept inching closer and closer and closer. But, it is nearly here. About seven hours from now, a year ago, I woke up to go to the bathroom, and my water broke. The delivery was everything that my last one wasn’t. No urgency, no drama, a working epidural (yay!) and a short hospital stay. And then it is all a blur.

Tug with her puppy.

H is a second child. She has more cell phone pictures than her sister, but less of the ones taken with the big camera. She has more hair, moved around earlier, but is a far pickier eater. She is never content to have a routine, and must constantly attempt to throw a wrench in things. From how she falls asleep, to what she eats for dinner. She is her own person and asserts this regularly. When she figures out how to talk, heaven help us because she will have demands. We think she thinks she’s more closely related to the dog than to the rest of us. She loves water enough to figure out how to crawl INTO the bathtub. She is a climber, oh my nerves, she is a climber.

In the baby jail so she could get some quality time with her sisters old pool.

She is nearly walking, starting to sign more and make regular noises. She is goofy, loves to laugh, begs to be tickled, and thinks her sister is the best. thing. ever. Which of course we already know she is, so it works.

Staging a dog bed takeover. Including claiming of a chew toy.

M, for her part, is turning out to be a pretty damn good big sister. Now that H reacts, she does more with her. But she is already staking out her claim to her space and her stuff, and like any good five year old, doesn’t always think through her actions. One of these days, H is going to fight back and it is going to be a rude wake-up call for my sensitive older girl. I have a feeling H was born to toughen up her sister a little. She’ll make up for it though in the kind of fierce devotion only sisters can have.

So, Happy Birthday to Ms. H. The one and only. The Pea Pod, the screech owl, the pterodactyl, the stinker, the snuggle, the goof, the baby. For now. For a few more hours.

Eating a sock. With sun flare because her mom wants to be a hipster.