The First Year

Although it's come to be a cliched phrase, "time flies" is so very true, especially when you're talking about how quickly children grow and change. Already looking back at Naia's first year, it seems like a blur and the milestones she accomplished were numerous.

Since our daughter had to return to work after only 6 or 7 weeks maternity leave, Naia was barely two months old when she came to stay (on a daily basis) at grandma and grandpa's house. Each morning at 6:15 or 6:30am, we were up to greet our daughter and grand daughter at the door. We soon settled into a routine that included feeding, changing diapers, nap time and playtime with grandpa, grandma and Naia's protector, Max.

I think I first noticed Naia's reaction to her mother's voice at about age 4 months. Her face lit up when she heard her mother's voice when she came to pick her up. She also began to exhibit to smile and even laugh at 4 or 5 months. I didn't recall hearing babies laugh. What do they have to laugh about any way? But the human capacity to exhibit a sense of humor starts early as do so many other emotions - love, anger, anxiety, fear and of course the capacity to learn and to develop competence and a sense of self confidence and identity. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, already.

As I said there were many milestones that first year, beginning with the development of attachment, especially to her mother and father. But, she also began to recognize us and her "protector", our scottish terrier, Max. Holding her own bottle, amusing herself on her exercise mat or walker/jumper were the simpler tasks. Rolling over, sitting up and crawling were a bit more complicated but all accomplished in due time. The crawling was perhaps the most difficult and occurred first as a rolling over movement to get where she wanted, then a king of sideways, backward slide before she was able to do the forward crawl. This last accomplishment took sometime and almost didn't happen as we thought she'd walk before she really got the crawl down pat.

Although she was born about a month prematurely, Naia was fairly healthy that first year. She did have a couple bouts with a bacterial infection that required her to drink only pediolite and was jaundiced shortly after birth. In spite of that, she grew steadily putting on weight and beginning to catch up to her age group.

We, grandma and grandpa, have been blessed to experience this miracle of child development. Our time with our grand daughter is very special to us, as so many grandparents work or live in an area of the country away from their grandchildren. We are doing what our parents did for us; helping to raise our grandchildren. It's quite special and seemingly becoming rarer in this modern age.