Happy First Birthday, Mariko! (I think...)

Three hundred and sixty-four days ago, we welcomed our third child, little Mariko, to the world. The challenge for the past week, though, has been just how to celebrate her first year. Mari was born on February 29th. I've argued for March 1st as the special day, but Sumie has been a hardliner for the 28th. Given that this post is coming to you on the 28th, you can guess who won. But I suppose this argument is all slightly irrelevant as we celebrated her birthday on the 26th.

 

Our baby with the unique birthday has provided us with an equally unique year. Somewhat hard to believe that we began prepping for her arrival well over 12 months ago. With two kids already in place, there wasn't much we needed to procure. The primary work to be done was prepping the kids for a new attention taker-awayer and toy disrupter. Mimi was excited and offered to test the bassinet.

Kuri wasn't quite as interested in helping, so his Papa spent some extra time with him. He even let him drive the Porsche.

The kids were pretty much ready, and by February 29th, so was Mari. She arrived healthy and, thankfully, not quite as loudly as her older sister.

Mimi was excited, but Kuri, despite all the extra trips and time spent with Papa, still had his doubts. He didn't quite know what to make of this very tiny person.

As with any newborn, sleep was at a premium for the first few months.

But there was plenty of cuddling to make up for it.

Mimi quickly got into the role of looking after her baby sister.

For the first month or two, Mariko was our little monkey...

...but she soon started to develop a mischievous personality...

...an appreciation for being surprised...

...and even a sense of wonder.

Despite only being a year old, Mari is already rather well-traveled. She's been all over California with us, including sites like the Jelly Belly Factory.

But her biggest, and earliest trip was to Japan. That required booking tickets before she was born (something rather difficult to do when one of the passengers doesn't yet exist) and getting passport photos done at the ripe old age of 5 days.

Reading has always played a large role in our family...

...and as the kids have gotten older, they're reading more and more independently.

 But that hasn't stopped them from taking some time to read to their baby sister...

...though sometimes a book is just too good to share and the baby has to play on her own.

And how has Kuri done when it comes to accepting his baby sister? Well, he's done a full 180. She's one of his favorite playthings, especially now that she can crawl. Except for the occasional destruction of his train set at her hands, he loves having her around.

Now that Mari's a bit older, we can do a lot of things together, like shopping at Costco...

...where Kuri works hard to protect his baby sister whenever there's any danger, like rain.

Even little trips up the road to Petaluma are special with these three.

The best times, though, are usually spent just hanging out at home, be it on the living room floor...

...or on Mama and Papa's bed.

And they really love to plan how to make Mama and Papa's lives a bit more, um, interesting.

It's been a wonderful first year. Mari may not be a walker yet, but she's crawling pretty much everywhere, though our slippery wood and tile floors often reduce her to a belly crawl, which at least helps to keep the floor clean.

One of our favorite things about little Mari is her amazing ear for language. She has a number of words now, including all the members of her family and, unfortunately, "no." She loves to babble with us, often taking part in full conversations. The only thing keeping her back from saying more than she does already are those two middle fingers on her left hand that constantly end up in her mouth.

Happy First Birthday, my little Marichan. I had no idea just how much you'd change our lives and how consistently you'd make us smile.