Irregular Newsletter: 12 Months

Three-hundred-and-sixy-effing-five-days!

HO-LY Shit, Man!

I can’t belive you’ve been around for a year.

I went back to the old external hard drive and found some pictures of that glorious day that you were born and found some pictures that I had not even really LOOKED at last year. The most spectacular one is titled “first cry” with little tomato-you, screaming with your face all crinkled up in the way that you still do, with a little corner of that doctor that both Mama and I had crushes on.

You look exactly like that now. Except bigger. Much bigger. Over 200 percent bigger.

And well, less red.

This month has been extraordinary.

You’ve mastered independent walking, which, according to Wikipedia occurs between 9 and 15 months old. You do not, however even approach our average walking speed (3 mph), but you do resemble competitive walkers with the emphasis placed on your arm and shoulders and you certainly have a strange hip movement, although at your speed you are not going to win any races. Furthermore, your body reflects your attempts at mastery with little scrapes and bruises everywhere. These are definitely the tell-tale signs of your evolution toward toddlerhood. This is the stage where you can tell parents from non-parents when we're out in public. The non-parents give me a wary eye, wondering about their responsiblity in reporting what they suspect is child abuse. Parents look at me with a knowing wink that he is obviously just learning to walk.

Today at Walgreens we picked up some glue to supplement the SYO's classroom. In order to get on with the other things I needed to get done, and to placate you and your thirty-pound-girth in my left arm, I let you chew on the unopened orange top. One man looked at you and, while pretending to talk to you (in that condescending voice people sometimes use with kids) he lectured me: You don't wanna be chewing on that GLUE do you? I joked: Gotta start 'em early! A joke which Mr. Serious didn't find funny.

BioMom and I went over to her aunt's new place for an open house and there we witnessed first hand what a four year old with a Y chromosome could be. This kid made even me - the thrilled-to-have-a-boy-to-rough-and-tumble-with - one in the family nibble at my nails. He was WILD, regularly flinging himself at unsuspecting me who, wincing with his head in my belly, imagining my body looking like elastigirl's at that moment with my spine on the other side of the room.

I kinda hope you'll be a little more (ahem) laid back.

Last night BioMom was in LA for work and we were in bed with the SYO singing and doing our "five-minute rundown". You laid between us with a little board book, content as hell. I wanted to stay there forever.

When I got up to go, you looked at me as if to say "I'm okay here. You can go. I don't mind going to bed a little early and without my bottle if I get to just stay here with her."

You are understanding more and more, and you've got this little trill/giggle that makes everyone around you laugh out loud.

You've got a great smile, still with only two bottom teeth, but you refused to share it with the photographer at JCPenny's and we'll forever own a picture of your HUGE pouty lip that you presented when she took the Christmas ornament away that you, apparently, mistook for a popsicle.




More evidence that you won't be quite as wild as that cousin of yours is that you eat like a European. Slowly. Methodically. Food is not simply a means to an end for you. Eating is an event peppered with enthusiastic and energetic conversation (however impossible to comprehend). At the start of dinner, you're just settling in. You'd prefer just a few Cheerios at first to cleanse the palate. Afterwards you prefer one taste at a time, eventually sampling whatever it is that we are enjoying, but at a much slower pace. If we sit with you, you'd love to spread the meal out 45 minutes to an hour. While we're loading the dishwasher, you're enjoying an espresso (with a twist) and waiting for the port to show up.

I suspect you're going to be a climber. When the SYO is in the tub, you do all that you can to fling yourself in there with her, clothes and all. Since having a recent little growth spurt, you can actually get your knee over the edge. I'm all inadvertenly encouraging: BIOMOM! GET IN HERE AND LOOK AT THIS! One afternoon, you slid your belly over the top and penguin-like slipped into the warm water (again, fully clothed).

Best of all, you understand and respond to "Gimmie a kiss!" with your soft warm lips (and sometimes wet open mouth). We all fight for these semi-rare nuggets of your love.

The neighborhood is gathering to celebrate you today, sweet one.

Happy Birthday!