Twelve months! Happy birthday, Sam!

Twelve months - November 21, 2014

Well, then. Here we are. One year, already, little man.

You woke up happy on your birthday morning, and cuddled in bed with us and snuggled with Emme. You love the kitties so very much. They love you, too, in their own way.

The way that you hug and pet and snuggle with the kitties is the way that you hug and kiss and snuggle with your stuffed animals. These days, your neon green puppy is one of your favorites. He rides in the car with you. When we get into the car, I hand him to you and you give him a big hug, snuggling against me and smiling. I usually sneak you into your car seat while you are hugging puppy. :)

You continue to be such an affectionate little man. A few weeks ago, you were sitting in my lap while I was reading you a book, and you all of the sudden stopped paying attention, leaned back, looked up at me, and leaned up for a kiss. Nevermind that you give kisses by lunging forward with your mouth wide open. It is still the sweetest thing ever. Recently, you have also been more intentional about looking for affection. You'll be playing with your toys on the floor, and then you'll scoot on over for a quick hug before returning to business. Sometimes you'll stand up behind me where I'm sitting and just lean against my back. Often times when we pick you up, you'll put your head down on our shoulders and hug us with both arms and give us love pats on our back or shoulders, sort of like how we pat your back when we're rocking you to sleep.

It's been a hit or miss month for sleeping, but with good reason. At the end of October, you had surgery to correct a minor birth defect. You were a rock star, Sammy. When they gave you to us in recovery, you were still sleepy and drugged, and it was not so easy for a mama to watch. But you slept the whole drive home and for a couple hours afterward, and when you awoke, you were as good as new! You chased the cats, ate like normal, crawled and climbed and did all your normal stuff. But I think the anesthesia messed with your sleep schedule. You had a few mornings of being wide awake for the day at 3:30 or 4:00 a.m. And then over the next couple weeks, as we tried to manage your pain, you would sometimes wake yourself up overnight because you were hurting, and it was hard to get you back down. But recently, you've been back to normal, sleeping the better part of 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., or thereabouts. You still like those early mornings, but at least you are more within reason.

You are still a champion eater. You'll try anything and everything, and seem to like most of it. You can take down huge quantities of food, but you're still a peanut! 10th percentile for weight and 30th percentile for height as of your one-year checkup. Your favorite food right now is bread of any variety. Grammy and Pop (Matt's parents) came to visit a week before your birthday, and you ate your own pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese icing. Turns out that you didn't want to get your hands too dirty, so you mostly ignored the frosting and just ate a bunch of cake.

You still have only five teeth: two on top, three on bottom. I think that you're starting to get that fourth tooth on the bottom, but I'm not sure.

We marvel at how cute and sweet and interactive you are. Each day brings with it so many new discoveries and capabilities. You know what your favorite books are and you pull them off the shelf to read. You love the book Zoom, with all of the animals in different colored cars racing to the finish line. You love your stripey cat pop-up book and your Noah's ark book. You've discovered the book about the baby owl that comes with a finger puppet. And you love pulling your toddler Bible off the shelf because it has a handle.

You love playing with your Duplo blocks. You still like dumping them out, but you've also moved on to being fascinated with how they stick together and how they come apart. You can put two blocks together all by yourself, and when you do, you look up with a huge grin and start clapping. We build all sorts of rocket ships and robots together. You like chasing pull toys around after mama and daddy, and you're trying to figure out how to work the magnetic blocks that Grammy and Pop gave you for your birthday. Sometimes you really want us to play with you, and sometimes you are content to sit and play quietly by yourself, in your own little world, for long stretches of time.

One of your favorite things right now is bathtime. We got you a new baby bathtub that sits inside our regular tub, so that you can sit up by yourself and soak in the water. You adore it. You play with your bath toys, and giggle, and splash. Oh my, do you splash!




You babble a lot, but still haven't managed any real words. You like saying ma-ma-ma and ba-ba-ba, and will gladly carry on conversations with us, just in your own language. You love dancing to music, whether you are sitting or standing. You'll dance to music on mama's phone, or the little tunes that your toy dump truck and toy cell phone play, even at 4:00 a.m.!




You still prefer to hold onto something while standing, but you don't really need to. Sometimes you'll forget, and you'll grab a toy with two hands or start clapping while standing, and you do just fine. You even did a little dancing while standing up unassisted! You have started getting brave enough to take one or two steps by yourself, if you are walking to something or someone particularly interesting. When you're holding onto your walker, though, you zoom around like a pro. So it won't be long until you are running around the house all by yourself. You love going up stairs, and are really good at it! Now we have to work on coming down feet-first. (You'd prefer to come down head-first.) You still love daycare, and you still love people. You have mostly outgrown your 9 month clothes and are starting to fill out your 12 month outfits. You have rediscovered a love for pacifiers when you are sleepy, and you have been getting better about napping. You get restless when you are tired, and you rub your eyes and you grab your ear. It is very cute.

Sam, there are so many more things that I want to say about you and about this first year, and hopefully I will find time to write up more of my thoughts in the next days and weeks. I need to write about Thanksgiving and about birthday celebrations. I need to write about all of the "what was I doing a year ago?" thoughts that I've been having.

But for now, I want to say happy birthday! You have turned our world upside down in so many wonderful, silly, crazy, frustrating, beautiful ways! You are the world's sweetest baby. We love you more than you'll ever know.