Happy Birthday to you....

H turned one year old today! This concept is simply unbelievable! None-the-less we celebrated. After we all got home from our respective schools, I set to work at getting dinner ready for the small group of friends who were able to join us for H's first birthday. The apartment had already been decorated with some fabulous dollar store finds to make the atmosphere as festive as possible so all that was left was the food and celebration.

The evening was a glorious mess of food, playing, and laughter. H was a champ and ate his fill of Mediterranean cuisine. He dined on olives, tomotaoes, cucumber, hummus, pita, and falafel. I was really impressed that he ate it all. Then he got down and played with the two D's that were visiting. Our living room floor became an sea of blocks and other toys in one state of use or another.

The cupcakes were done just before H was ready for bed. Everyone sang happy birthday and H looked around beaming with happiness, swaying to the song. Somehow we thought that we would be able to put a cupcake in front of him, sing, and then not have him eat the cupcake. It became clear from the deeply concerned look on H's face when Jason went to remove the cupcake that we should just let him have it. It is his birthday afterall.

If it is possible to describe H's cupcake eating style as carefully messy then that is what you should imagine. He takes the cupcake and crams it into his mouth and uses both of his little hands to keep shoving more and more slowly into his mouth not letting a crumb escape, if he can help it. And his expression is super focused. You can just imagine him thinking, "This is so good and such a rare occurance that I am not letting it go, no matter what."

After all of the fun H went to bed happily. I laid him down and he rolled to his side waiting for his blanket to suck on as he difted off to sleep.

Looking back...

At this time last year, Hendrick was two hours old. We had just finished eighteen and a half hours of labor and were settling into our room at the hospital with this tiny, beautiful little baby who was perfect in every way. He was tired, we were tired, and the hugeness of our lives together was incomprehensible. It felt like time had stopped and we were going to be living in that moment forever. But of course time went on and we left the hospital a day later and went home to our apartment to began our life with H.

Those first few weeks were an emotional roller coaster. I would look at H and cry because he was so beautiful. I would look at H and cry because I was so tired. With the help of good friends and family we made it through the beginning of H's life surrounded by love, laughter, and support.

We figured out all sorts of interesting things this year, such as how far away from the computer to change a newborn, how loud a tiny human can be, how little sleep one really needs, and how to communicate again as a couple (with less sleep and a baby in the mix) among many other things.

There have been many moments that were far from perfect. There were days when I spent too much time preparing in the hopes that everything would run "perfectly" only to have it all implode. I learned how to adjust my expectations so that I was able to enjoy the imperfection of it all and lo and behold things began to feel easier.

This year has been full of wonderful moments. To be there to witness H as he discovered his hands, feet, us... has been a gift I will be forever grateful for. As a teacher I always felt lucky to be a part of the lives of my students and now I feel lucky to be a part of H's life. It is such a blessing to get to experience the wonder of each new discovery with a child. The shrieks of joy at each new moment. "Aha! Look at this! Isn't it fabulous!"

And as we close this first year of minutes, hours, and days, another one has already begun full of its own discoveries. I cannot wait to find out what we will discover about ourselves this year. What joys will we have? What struggles? What else will we get to learn about H? What other magic will we get to see? One thing is for certain, I will no doubt be surprised and humbled over and over as we keep ambling down this little dirt road that is our path.

Let the celebration begin!

Today marks the one year anniversary of my due date and it is also the day that we had H's one year birthday celebration at the Nido! After watching all of his friend's turn one it is finally H's turn!

The celebration was wonderful complete with balloon fun, singing, and cupcakes. I had only heard tell of H's cupcake eating skills and so today I got to see them in action. That boy is amazing! He managed to finish off an entire cupcake by cramming it into his mouth in about a minute and a half! All of his other friends were politely licking frosting and biting their cupcakes daintily. Not H, he went full throttle and then began reaching for the cupcake of the person next to him.

This was just the beginning of our celebration of H's first year and our first year as parents. We look forward to the coming festivities!

The shriek

Today, while H was intentionally not napping when he should of been, we heard a shriek of joy from H's room. We had left H in his room a little while earlier and instead of sleeping he decided to play. We were listening to the normal playing noises when H let out one of his trademark shriek's of joy. Generally we hear 'the shriek' when he has figured out he is capable of something new (such as standing), has a what he considers to be a particularly good idea, or has discovered something absolutely fantastic.

So, today we hear the shriek and sit in the living room wondering what it is that H is shrieking about. We guess it must be a good idea. After a few minutes it has been very quiet. Normally this means H is focused on something intently. Generally such intense focus is directed at something he shouldn't be doing (such as playing with ever exciting extension cords). When we peek into his room, H is sitting on the floor happily sucking on an old bottle he found. Earlier that morning he had a bottle and instead of putting it in the kitchen I forgot it on the window sill behind the curtain. During naptime H was tooling around his room and made one of his favorite stops at the window sill to lift up the curtain and peer out. To his great surprise and joy today he found a bottle! So, the shriek we heard that we thought was due to a good idea was in fact a shriek of joy at the discovery of the bottle. You would have thought H had struck gold.

In order to allow H to enjoy his discovery we gave him a fresh bottle so that I could stop cringing as a mom watching my child suck on a dirty bottle. And we all felt very happy with the compromise.

Stepping on up!

So, it seems as if H took his first steps today! This was nothing huge in distance. It was more of a lurch from me to J with several steps involved and no assistance from either mom or dad. H was standing and holding onto my hands and suddenly decided he wanted to be with daddy so he just stepped on over a few feet. Of course, after this event he had no desire to repeat the action. I think he considered the whole thing to be a little risky and will stick with crawling for a little while.

Shelling beans

H's dad is a big fan of fava beans and was thrilled to find them at the store this weekend. So, H got his first lesson in shelling beans. Although J showed him a traditional way to shell, H was more interested in an alternative approach that involved chewing the beans out of their shell.

 

 

He crawls, he climbs, he slides!

We are regular visitors to the tot park a few blocks from our home and this weekend was a big one for tot park firsts! This weekend H decided to climb up the stairs of the play structure and slide down the slide all by himself. He was so pleased with the whole thing that he did it about 10 times before then climbing up, crawling through the tunnel to a different slide and slid down that slide about 10 times. All in all it was much fun and H's friend D joined us about half way through the visit and cheered H on! Needless to say, H slept very well that night.