Happy Birthday, Jade!

It's amazing to me, and a little bit frightening, that it's already been a year since Jade was born.

Oh, the changes is one short year! She's gone from being a blob of baby to a speed-crawling, stair-climbing bundle of curiosity, from being completely dependent on Fawn for nutrition to hoovering anything in sight, including the dog's and cat's food, from gurgles and coos to clearly articulated babble, from having absolutely no musical ability to putting on concerts with a pitch pipe and performing duets with Nanuq, and from having great difficulty filling her diaper and passing gas (it's hard when you haven't developed those muscles yet!) to not having any difficulties filling her diaper and passing gas. I'll say it again: Oh, the changes in one short year!

Not finding the pitch pipe challenging enough, Jade attempts to master the complexities of the trumpet. (For those readers that are also trumpet players, I am NOT playing my trumpet with the bell facing the floor - I'm organizing music for the Dessert and Dance the night this picture was taken.)

Sadly, my little munchkin cannot enjoy her birthday the way I'd like her to. She has a fever and a cold. Instead of doing something fun, we're going to take her to the doctor's office. Her fever has been up and down, but she has had it for several days now. I'm not surprised that she's sick: it seems like everybody I meet either has or had something, including poor Fawn, who's supposed to go back to work tomorrow. I've been pretty lucky so far, but the dryness in my throat this morning is not a promising sign. I suppose I knew it was coming. How can you resist when your child's greatest joy is sticking her germ-ridden fingers into your mouth?

Having a sucky sicky moment.

In spite of her rattling cough and puffy eyes and bubbly nose (yes, snot bubbles actually come out of her nose - some of them quite large), Jade seems to be in pretty good spirits! She's a little "clingy-er" at times, but on the whole, she seems to be taking the whole thing pretty well. Not counting her hernia and that one time several months ago when her nose ran like a faucet (with no other apparent symptoms), it's the first time she's been sick.

A pretty crappy first birthday, but there's always next year!