Max,
You are a one year-old boy now. (In fact
you are more than one by the time I'm posting this, but I wrote this on a plane
on my way home from Austin Texas just before your first birthday.) It seems
like I have, and will, say this at every age but you amaze me.
You can walk, run sometimes, you climb up everything
including over the top of the couch, on our night stands, up the your bookshelf,
and onto any toy that seems like a good step on the way to your desired
destination. You
still make frequent use of your very speedy crab crawl with your left knee and right
foot but slowly walking is taking over as your preferred and fastest method of
motivation.
You
are full of words, though only a few of them come out clearly. Right now
bye-bye is the clearest among them usually accompanied by a little waive and
often a kiss you blow to the departing party. Mamamamama, dadadadada and
nananana are also in the mix. And you are starting to use a few of your baby
signs – your favorites are “all done”, “bird”, “more”, and sometimes “milk”.
While you are using more words of your own you seem to understand everything. We have quickly learned that if we tell you what we are doing you are much happier — getting dressed or going places or eating, you like to know what's going on
You
like to read books with Mommy (and Mommy is probably biased because this is one
of my favorite things too). You pick the books you want off the belf or out of
your basket and you turn the pages for me as we go. You also like to play with
your books all by yourself. You love your Elmo
Bath Time book and your Who Loves Baby soft picture book. When
we ready together you love 123 NYC
and Little Blue Truck but your clear
favorite is I Love You Through and
Through.
To
my amazement and great joy you are beginning to pretend. You got a toy cell phone
for Christmas and ever since you love to pick it up and hold it to your ear and
babble little conversations. Now everything is a phone and you like to share
making sure Mommy and Daddy and Nana get their turns talking on the phone too.
You also like to pretend to drink from the toy jug of milk when I pour it into
a pretend glass for you.
You
also love to play with your music toys and cars. And of course you love your
classes – you are the mayor of Gymboree. You are fearless with the bigger kids
and you crawl and climb all over everything. And now that you are big enough
you love to go to the park. You climb up the jungle gym and go down the little
slides all by yourself. I have a feeling you’d climb even higher and wouldn’t
hesitate to go down the big slides if we’d let you. Daddy likes to encourage
the daredevil in you, but I’m not ready for all your bravery quite yet.
You
also love the sand box and the grass. The best day at the park so far was when
a few older kids were there with their Big Wheels trikes. As soon as one of
them left theirs unattended you make a b-line for it. By the time you were
crawling in the seat a worried six year-old little boy was rushing over to reclaim
his Big Wheels. Very nicely, he let you sit on it first though!
You sleep the whole night through in your own room now, even though sometimes Mommy and Daddy would rather have you back in our room. Nana Karen started it by just putting you in your crib one night when we went out to dinner and you slept so well and straight through the night that we’ve kept doing it.
Everyone
tends to agree that you are the happiest baby ever. You are quick to smile and
seem to be continually in a good mood. Things do upset you from time to time,
and you have your grumpy moments, but it always seems to pass quickly and fussy
times are few. You wake up with a smile
on your face and my favorite times of the day are when you wake up smiling and
holding you as you fall asleep each night.
I
think back to the day you were born. Our excitement to have you seems to have been
just the beginning. Every day you layer on another level of happiness. If it’s
possible I smile brighter now that I have you than I ever did before.
We
love you baby boy.
