Thursday, April 24, 2014

Owen: Year 1.

Wow, I can hardly believe Owen will be turning one this weekend. I still feel like I just gave birth to him! It's amazing how much he has grown and changed over the past year.

In celebration of my favorite little dude's first birthday, I wrote him a letter, mostly so I don't forget the little things that make him special at this age.

Enjoy. :)

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Dear Owen,

Holy cow, you're ONE-YEAR-OLD!! The big 0-1, kiddo. You've come a long way, baby.

I remember when you were born - you had white blond hair and translucent grey eyes. Even though you were a fairly solid sleeper from the start (you know, for a newborn) those early days were rough. I was convinced that you would just cry, eat, sleep, poop and never smile forever at that point.

Just when I had about enough, after a month you FINALLY gave me the first of many, many, MANY gummy grins.  I'm not sure if you were just born happy and just wasn't able to express it at first, but you became the biggest ham ever. Seriously - it's gotten to the point where if I try to take any candid photos of you, you immediately turn to the camera and give me a big cheesy smile. Heck, you'd be crying and I'd put a camera in front of you and you'd bust out a grin.

You've accomplished so many milestones over this past year, including rolling over, sitting up, crawling and pulling yourself up and cruising around. You're also babbling up a storm - no actual words yet, but we're pretty sure that "BA-BA" means bottle and "MA-MA" means....well, I'm hoping it means me, but knowing you it might very well mean "MORE MORE!"

Speaking of BA-BA and MA-MA...did I mention you LOVE food?! Because you do! Starting solids was one of the highlights of your life so far. I guess with two parents who are foodies I shouldn't really be surprised. You'll eat pretty much anything - except for mashed potatoes, which puzzles the heck out of us. Considering you'll eat just about anything else without much of a fuss, we'll let it slide.

Some other highlights (good and bad):

  • Teething - those teeth just keep on coming in, don't they?  Thank God for frozen teething rings and Infant Tylenol/Advil.
  • Watching your eyes turn blue - I still cannot believe they didn't turn brown like mine. Dominant brown-eyed genes my pitootie! (fyi: I have brown eyes, my husband has blue eyes)
  • "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" - I don't know why this song resonates with you so much, but for some odd reason it's one of the only things that calms you down when you're crabby. If I had a dollar for every time I sang this to you, I would be a very, very rich woman.

Did I mention how incredibly awesome your dad has been over this past year?! When I was so upset over you not sleeping and/or cluster feeding in the early days, along with other challenges you've presented us with so far, he's been a rock and a shining example of how to be a good parent. Me? I've still got some learning/adjusting to do (that's right, mommies aren't perfect, no matter what we lead you to believe!) but with him by my side I'm confident we can raise you up right.

So, on this most audacious of days that you probably won't remember, I wish you very happy birthday. I'm so, so, SO happy and proud to be your MA-MA.

Happy birthday kiddo. :)

Love,
Mom



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