What an oldie!

October 22, 2010

Our little man turned one this week. WOW! I can’t believe just how wonderful he is, and just how much I am in love with everything he does. I was just going to write “except how early he wakes up,” but even then, he’s so full of curiosity and eager get-go that I can’t help but love that too about him. 🙂

This year has been the rollercoaster that everyone talks about. Every word was true. Yes, we are always tired. No, we have no idea how we used to squander our precious “extra” time that we no longer have. Yes, it’s all worth it when he smiles.

But you know, nothing anyone ever said really quite… clicked. Nothing they had said made me understand just how awe-inspiring being his parent was going to be. So many times, I cradled him to me while he slept, just smelling the top of his head and wondering how could he be so perfect?

I remember the first crazy days in the hospital. He lay there, swaddled up tight with his silly hospital hat, and I couldn’t believe he was finally here. We were so tired, but even as we were falling sleep on our feet, we fought off sleep to just take one more look at him, to hold him one more time, to touch his little ears and nose and fingers, because we couldn’t get enough. He was finally out and I just wanted to hold him all the time.

I remember seeing his fingers and toes, and how much his toenails looked like Seppo’s. His nails were so thin that the tips would bend at the slightest touch and break off like bits of tissue paper. His eyebrow line already looked like his dad’s. His tiny nose was so tiny it was hard to tell whose it more resembled. 🙂 The little part between the nose and the mouth looked like Seppo too. Seppo said he looked just like me. Regardless, he was 100% ours and a marvel to behold.

There were times the nurses found us in the hospital room, weeping because we were so overwhelmed. We were tired and didn’t know what to do to comfort our tiny, vulnerable, helpless baby, and that in turn made us feel helpless. We wanted to do our very best for our little one, but we found we had no confidence, only heart.

We brought him home. We had help but it was still hard to learn his cues, so figure out when he wanted food, when he needed to be changed, and when he wanted just to be held. Slowly, we figured it out. As we did, we could see how he was changing, and how fast!

At first, he just started to keep his eyes open more. Then he started to stare intently at specific things, so much so that his little brows would crinkle down. He couldn’t hold his neck up yet, or really turn on his own very well, so he’d stare out sideways sometimes. 🙂

And fast forward a year, and he’s almost walking! He’s vocal, he has wants, he has a ridiculously silly sense of humor, he is curious about everything, he is fiercely independent and goal-oriented, he strives and reaches and goes. Always, he is going.

Everyday that I am with him, he fills me with laughter and joy at his weird, silly, funny, persistent self. He experiments over and over with things to see how they behave. Will this ball bounce the same as the block? Will this spoon make the same sound as this train?

He loves his rattles and xylophones and drums. He loves music, unexpected things, inside jokes, being totally nude. Oh yes, he giggles and crawls away as fast as he can when you take his clothes off to change him or give him a bath. He’s a sneaky one! He loves the wind in his face from whatever source and the rainbow-colored pinwheels at his daycare, so much so that I got a couple to put outside his window for him. He stops his play to stand up and peek out the window, waving when the pinwheels spin.

I… Seriously, this post could go on and on. I could write a whole NaNoWriMo’s worth (50,000 words) of the ways he is amazing and the ways we love him. I wish I could capture every moment perfectly, so that he can know the ways he’s changed us and made our lives infinitely better. If he ever reads this as an adult, I hope he’ll know just how much we love him and how much we love being his mommy and daddy.

I can’t even imagine what next year will bring, little one. I look forward to every minute.