He's a whole year old!!!
Since we were heading out of town for Laura's wedding, we just had a small pizza lunch with the Grandmas and of course, more cake! He did get quite a sugar high this time but it didn't last too long.
Sadly, on his first birthday we had to leave him overnight for the first time. I'm not sure who it was hardest on but we all survived. My dear friend Laura got married and I was in the wedding and it was so nice, we had a great time even though we missed our boy terribly. My mom just stayed at our house with him. We left Friday afternoon for rehearsal and dinner, and then since it was a morning wedding, we did get home late in the evening Saturday. He was quite happy to see us (and though my mom said he was very good for her, I'm sure she was glad to get home and relax too!).
So my baby is a whole year old....sometimes it seems like it went SO fast, but other times I can hardly remember life before Max. We all survived a whole year with little injury! Poor Max got that RSV virus when he was 4 months, Nate drilled a bit through his thumb baby proofing the kitchen and I had some tendinitis in my wrist from holding Max until he would actually rest on my hip but all in all, that's not too bad!
The only thing I think I miss is relaxing.... like not feeling like there is ALWAYS something I should be doing. But we just have the best little boy ever. I could never get tired of hanging out with him because he always makes you laugh. I think I also miss my living room sometimes! But I can honestly say we put to very good use EVERYTHING we had: bouncer, swing, jumper, walker, play mat, tummy mat, pac-n-play and now our riding toys! Some day he'll be big enough to play on his own in his room and we'll get our house back but for now, we make do and are thankful for a big living room!
I'm also proud to say I had exactly enough frozen breast milk that Max got some every day for the entire first year of his life (even though he stopped nursing in the 10th month). It was totally worth it! I was also lucky that Max transitioned very nicely to formula supplements and we only started on his first B-day, but he seems to like milk pretty well too.
What I also think played a huge role in his first year is the video monitor. It seems crazy but I can't tell you how many hours I've spent watching it. From all the sleep/nap transitions to know if he was asleep or settled or if it was worth getting up and going in.... to honestly spending a total of hours over this first year just watching him sleep on it. We lay in bed at night and watch him and talk about all the cute and funny things he did that day and still just can't believe how we got so lucky.
So for the last month.... we're going into year one with still only 2 teeth! But he has finally taken to real food the the last few weeks. I guess I should say its been really nice but now we're kinda in an awkward stage of trying to figure out what he likes, still getting some baby food of course but some days he wants to eat like a big boy and I'm pretty particular that he still gets lots of fruits and veggies so some meals tend to be a struggle but he's doing pretty well over all, especially since he's doing it all on 2 teeth! He's still not walking. He's standing and walking assisted all the time but hasn't really shown any interest yet. I think once he starts he'll take off. Everyone says how hard it is but honestly, he crawls everywhere now, and pretty fast so I really don't think it will be too different. Just more boo boos for mom to kiss probably! He talks a lot. He has his vocab (mama, dada, ball, baseball, football, book, bus, woof...) but he'll also repeat words you say so even though he's not using them regularly, he does say a lot in any given day. Still sleeping about 11 hours and taking two good naps. We went to the Dr's and he's 20.9oz and 29 inches long, which is a bit on the smaller side but we weren't expecting to raise a basketball player! I'd rather have them small than large!
Never too young right???
