Kendle's Birthday Week

My daughter Kendle is turning 5 on Thursday, so I thought each day this week I would do a post about one year of her life. This first post is technically two posts in one.

Coming from a big family of mostly boys, I always wanted to have a little girl of my own. At our ultra-sound to find out what we were having, they told us they were about 80% sure it was a girl, but they couldn't be positive because her legs were crossed the entire time. And believe me, we tried to get her to move around, that was the longest my bladder has ever held a gallon of water. But typical to her nature, she didn't budge. We thought, well at least she's modest, not off to a bad start. The labor was long and painful, she took her time to say the least, but oh what a beautiful baby. 10 pounds of pure love.















Looking back I can see definite personality traits from the get go. Kendle was a happy, strong, go-getter of a baby. She figured out at a young age how to entertain people and has always had a good sense of humor. She's just one of those kids that really gets the funny things in life. She was in a walker by the time she was three or four months old and would zoom around, I would have to hop out of the way as she got older because she would come up behind me and get the back of my ankles. Ouch!

Our first year together was a tough one because Riley was working a lot and there were a lot of late nights. So me and Kendle were the dynamic duo and I took her everywhere. She went to her first sporting event at two weeks old, and has been my game buddy ever since. She started walking around 9 months and was running by 11 months. She has always loved the water and never cried ever, from getting a bath. Bath time was her personal favorite.

Her first birthday came in a hurry, I couldn't believe how fast the time went by. Kendle's first words beside the usual mama and dada were "what's that?". She would run around the house pointing at different things and yell "what's that", "what's that"! Curiosity had her wanting to know anything and everything. She loved when her daddy would lay on the floor with her and she could crawl all over him and wrestle. It wasn't hard for her to have Riley wrapped around her little finger.

It wasn't long before she was trying to sing along with me in the car. We liked to go on walks together around the neighborhood almost every day and she would wave and smile to everyone and make me stop if we saw a dog. That is another distinctive trait - that she has always loved animals, especially dogs. Even as a 1 year old, they never scared her. At 18 months when it was time for her to go to nursery at church (actually they let me bring her a couple of months early) she was delighted to go and play and for me to leave her. That was one of the most blatant times the independence dragon reared it's ugly head, and that was my first twinge of hurt that she didn't need me as much anymore.

What a fun girl she was growing into. She always had lots of smiles for her mom and dad. Stay tuned for tomorrow's year 2 post.