I am a proud mama of a 1-year-old little boy

Everybody would always tell me how fast life goes by when you have kids.  When I was a new mother and had newborn Desmond looking up at me and I was bewildered and unsure of myself and lonely and maybe a little bit sad, it seemed that he would be this little, this dependent on me for the rest of my life on this earth.  But, lo and behold, all the shit people tell you about enjoying your time before a baby and enjoying the time you have with a baby because "time flies" is really true.  Imagine that.

Now, I'm a year older (hello 30s) and I am a bona fide mother of a 1-year-old son.  I can't even believe it sometimes.  As I look from the outside in onto my life and particular situation, I'm astounded that I'm at the place I am right now: unmarried with a toddler, living with the most wonderful man I've ever met, in St. Louis of all places, in a two-story red brick house.  I don't know what I expected out of my life by the age of 30...I guess when you're young, 30 seems ancient and so far into the future, that you can't possibly imagine living a life at that age and you don't want to imagine yourself living the life your mother lived at 30.

When Des was first born, I couldn't imagine getting to this point.  But here we are.  We've all made it.  and I'm so glad, so very glad that I experienced the first year of his life with him.  All the good parts and the maddening parts and the down parts, I wouldn't trade a moment of it for any other crazy, free, passionate, I-wish-I-were-in-my-20s moment.  I've had the privilege of living a beautiful sociological experiment: watching how my ideas of parenting, children, and relationships has helped to mold this beautiful little being's mind and temperament.  When he dances around the living room, unselfishly offers his food to his parents or the dogs (may be that he hates the way the food we give him tastes...), or comes up to me to take my face in his hands and give me a hug when a particular episode of glee makes me cry, I see how he exhibits several of my traits (except the food one) and I'm amazed how truly like a sponge these little guys are and how every single action we do while raising them, every decision we make, every caress or moment that we ignore them impacts them, without our knowing it, until we see them at 1 year old, manifesting all this knowledge seemingly all at once.





When I see him laugh, I hear Billy's laugh.  When he looks at me devilishly when he's about to pull the books off that shelf, I am reminded at how playful of a dad Billy is.  He is the most amazing science experiment ever and I'm the luckiest, albeit unpaid, PI (principal investigator in research speak) ever.

Enough of the babble.  On to more important topics like birthday parties for 1-year-olds.  Billy and I hardly ever buy anything for Desmond.  Like I've said ad nauseam, we've been fortunate enough to have generous family and friends, bagfuls of hand-me-overs, and places like Kid-to-Kid to shop.  So, the idea of throwing a huge bash for him, although tempting since I love any kind of party, didn't make sense to our sensibilities (mostly monetary).  We knew that family were going to send gifts anyway, so we didn't buy him a single thing (I wonder how long we could get away with that...) but we did end up buying him what ended up to be his favorite toy for like 5 days: balloons and we had to get some sort of frosting-bedecked cake for him to attack (we ended up going with a massive cupcake). 

Gifts

Half running with the balloon

The birthday cupcake...and yes, that's a Christmas platter it sits on.

Let the fun begin!

Deciding on how to attack the cupcake, since picking it up, jamming it into his mouth wasn't quite cutting it for him.

Finally got a decent mouthful in.

Success!

"And then, the cupcake went 'BOOM!!!' and exploded all over my face.  True story, folks."

He only shared about a quarter of that big cupcake. 

Cleaned up and in a pair of boxer shorts his grandma got him.  The thing in his hand is a dog hair roller.  We should've wrapped that up as a present for us.  Parents, you DON'T have to buy kiddie toys...just look around your house for the most random stuff, wrap it, and give it to the child.  They'll love you all the same (if they're teeny.  Do not try this with teenagers.)

Standing atop his spoils.

Some 1-year milestones include:

• He could say ma-ma, baaa (I think that's his name for Billy), and "ufff ufff" for dog (which he says while making humping movements)
• He started walking at 11.5 months and now (as I write this 1 month after his birthday), he can almost run.
• He is able to go up and down stairs without any help (he actually slides down the stairs on his tummy, feet first.  Scared the shit out of me when he first started doing it - he flies down the stairs - but now I'm used to it)
• He is able to get off a bed (feet first)
• He knows the name of several friends and family members and is able to pick them out of a lineup (more on that in another post)
• He's starting to become a pickier eater and is now gravitating towards anything with peanut butter in it
• He loves music, especially the country music station.
• He is just starting to understand the concept of shapes and fitting things together (peg into hole, stacking cups based on size, etc)  
• He also understands Spanish very well.