One Year Old

Dear E,

Today you are one year old! At this time last year, we were still waiting for you to arrive, because you weren’t born until 9:23 p.m…. but you were worth the wait – and you were worth all the hard work I had to do. We fell in love with you the moment we saw you, and somehow, that love only gets bigger and bigger every day.

Now, you are such a big boy and we are incredibly proud of you! You are so much fun, learning new things each moment, growing so fast. The photos below really show how much you’ve changed. This week, you are working on being silly and joking a lot: you waggle your head so that we will waggle back; you make a very saucy face at us, on purpose, that never fails to make us smile; you have this funny fake laugh that’s hilarious. You still love the blue glass ball that makes you grin so big, and now you have your own little one as a birthday present from Auntie Beth. You also love lifting flaps and turning pages in your books; you adore it when we use the salad spinner; you enjoy playing the piano (especially the pushing the red “Record” button – you’ve made countless recordings already); and you are an expert at pressing buttons on the stereo, especially opening and carefully closing the tape deck.

You are working on lots of words, as well. The ones we recognize and that you use in context (even though some of them are only sort-of pronounced) are Hi, Bye-bye, ball, book, buckle, bellybutton, apple, more, Mama, Dada, yay, cracker, and occasionally kitty and cookie. And yesterday you learned the sign for Please and used it several times. You are so smart.

It’s hard to believe how fast your first year has gone for us. It was full of the most precious moments of our lives. We feel so, so lucky that you arrived safely, and that you have been so healthy and happy all year. You are the sweetest baby boy we could ever have imagined. We love you more than we will ever be able to say.