I never could have imagined how wonderful you were going to make my life before you came into this world a year ago today. You’ve tested my patience, you’ve made me love like I’ve never loved before and you’ve made me a better person.
You’ve made me such a passionate woman. Passionate for breastfeeding, passionate for natural birth, passionate in making strides for a healthier planet, passionate about being a kind and gentle human.
The first couple of months of your life were difficult for us, as they are with most new parents. I didn’t know how much you needed to sleep, and so we’d purposely keep you up in the evenings fearing that you’d be ready to start the day at 4am. It wasn’t until you were TWO MONTHS OLD that we realized you could sleep from 8pm-7am (with nursing breaks, of course) and that you needed a 45 minute nap every one and a half hours. Life became so much better once I figured that out. There were also turbo barfs, painful gas, the introduction of the dreaded soother, your first cold, and my two and a half month recovery period where I couldn’t walk, so we just stayed in bed for 99% of the day, soaking up as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. Your first smiles happened in your second month, and even though I still love to see you smile, there was nothing comparable to seeing your first smirks.
Breastfeeding has had its ups and downs- from my bleeding, blistered nipples, to forceful letdown and oversupply that lasted four months, to thrush, to plugged ducts (that still happen about every three weeks), to a nursing strike when you were about six months old, to my sensitivity to oats and beer, but we’ve stuck through it and it’s been more than worth it. Some women set small goals for themselves when it comes to breastfeeding- make it through the first week, then month, then three months then six months etc, but ever since I was pregnant my only goal was to last until you were two. We’re still going strong, there’s no doubt in my mind that along with your cooperation, we’ll last until you’re at least two.
We’ve done really well at practicing Elimination Communication since you were three months old, and now at a year, I’m happy to say that it’s rare that you have poop accidents. Most of the time you go when we tell you to, but if you don’t need to we can tell immediately when you’re about to go in your diaper. We’re hoping actual toilet training will go extremely smoothly and I expect that within the next 6-7 months you’ll be fully potty trained (pees in the potty too). Wouldn’t that be nice!
We’ve had a rough go of it allergy-wise this year. It all began with the silk/cashmere layer on our high-end mattress. You’d rub your face into it and your eyes would turn red after a few minutes of being on it, even though it had a hypo-allergenic cover and a sheet. The breaking point was when you broke out in hives and I had to take you to three doctors who still insisted that you were too young to have allergies. Bullshit! We sold the mattress and bought a new one and we haven’t had any issues since. But then when you started eating real food, we noticed you would get congested after eating banana so we both had to cut those out of our diets, unfortunately. And then you had diarrhea for THREE weeks because of the Cheerios you were eating. The doctor told me it wasn’t the oats, oh no, it was all the fiber from the vegetables I was feeding you. Whatever. I cut out the oats and you were back to normal almost immediately. Now I have a suspicion that you’re allergic to milk. I wish I knew where all of these allergies were coming from.
I’m proud to say you’ve never spent a night away from us, you’ve always been snuggled in beside me and you’ve never cried at night either. Why would you? You know you’re safe because I’m right there, and if I haven’t come to bed yet you know I’ll be in there when you call my name to shush you back to sleep.
It’s hard for me to remember what a small baby you once were and that’s more devastating than I can communicate. I miss the days where we would spend hours sleeping together, you nestled on top of me. I miss you being just a lump that I could easily tote around and have people comment on how tiny you were.
This year has been absolutely amazing. We’ve settled into routines of walks and naps and visits with your Auntie Ambera and dinner with Papa and a strict 7pm bedtime. You’ve been out of the country already and were a fantastic travelling companion. Sure, we’ve had our rough moments, like when you were 10 days old and didn’t stop nursing between 9pm and 6am and I was throwing pillows at the wall out of frustration and fatigue, but we’ve made it through. We make a good team.
My life will never be the same again. I don’t miss my old life very often, you bring me so much joy that I don’t know how I could. I was worried, before you came, that I might not like being a mother but nothing is further from the truth. Being your mom is just about the best thing in the entire world. I think you are one suburb kid.
This was the month you went from baby to toddler. The change literally happened overnight- one day you were a babbling, happy baby and the next day you had your first temper tantrum because I wouldn’t let you take a glass of water from the nightstand onto the bed. You threw your entire body, face first, into the mattress and wept. Real tears and everything. I just sat there dumbfounded and knew that everything had changed in that instant, and laughed because of how ridiculous you looked, being so upset over something so small. But everything changed in that 24-hour period and you haven’t been the same kid since.
Your favorite food changed this month. You still love peaches (and can even say “peesch”), plums, all kinds of melons, noodles and broccoli, but your favorite thing to eat is sushi of all things! You even try to say sushi, and it comes out “sussh,” this saliva-y sounding one-syllable “sushi,” but I get it. The other night you ate an entire avocado roll! Speaking of avocado, you hated it for the past six months but now if I give you a plain piece of it and call it “sushi” you’ll gobble it right up. Ahh, the manipulation has begun!
You’re seconds away from really talking, I swear. Most of what comes out of your mouth are excited “beh” and “deh” noises, and you haven’t called your father “Papa” yet, but you try to say “truck” and “dog” and you come pretty close. There are letters on our bathroom wall (G, C & A) and you point at them after using the potty, so we always look at them up close and I say, “This is a C” and you repeat, “shis deh.” At least you’ve nearly got the “this” part down pat. G, C and A are hard to say!
You have a love affair with cars, trucks and bicycles. I don’t know where it came from, and I wish I understood where it came from, but it seems to be hard wired into your BOY brain, because you love nothing more than things with wheels. When we go outside, you’re constantly pointing at big noisy trucks, or bicycles locked to fences, cars driving by, it doesn’t matter- if it has wheels, you love it. We were outside of our house a couple of weeks ago when a couple of garbage trucks went by and you were enthralled (!) with them, and I helped you along with that and was all, “wooooahhh! Do you see the big GARBAGE TRUCK, Ash?! Cool!!” and the driver noticed you pointing and both of us being excited and he waved like the queen from inside of the cabin! It was adorable- I bet he felt pretty special to have such a little guy be so excited about him driving down the street.
You have lots of wooden cars, trucks and trains around the house and will often take one in each hand and drive them on the floor, your little knees trying to keep up with the front part of your body. You go pretty fast! Your father brought out a few of his dinky cars from when he was a little boy (the year is stamped on the bottom of them, and they go back all the way to 1978), and you love them, too. I’ve found a few more treasures at second hand places in the past few days, including a huge metal dump truck that’s probably about 25 years old, a metal street cleaner and a few more vintage dinky cars.
The dump truck was a GREAT find, only costing $2.99. Hardly any of it is plastic, either, and those who know me know that I avoid plastic like the plague around here. All you need is a sandbox, and you’ll be set. The dump truck left you with a bruise within minutes of taking it home. You tried to push it around the house like you do with all of your other cars, but you leaned on the back of the bucket and the top of it swung up and hit you square on the forehead. You cried pretty hard, sadly. You got over it pretty quickly though because A DUMP TRUCK!!! And lo and behold, it happened again, immediately after the first time. Ouch. Except it hit you even harder, a louder DONNNNGGG when it connected with your forehead, and you cried even more. I swept you up into my arms just like the first time and soothed you, and you noticed the dump truck again and started excitedly, “beh! Beh! Dehdehbeh!” just at the sight of it, but then remembered how it had hurt you and you’d start wailing again and then you’d get excited again and then would remember, and on and on in that pattern for a good 60 seconds. Then, for two days you’d just sit with it, and slowly move it back and forth a couple of inches in front of you. You learned your lesson. You were extremely cautious, rightfully so. We now have the bucket strapped down with a thick elastic band and there haven’t been any incidents since.
You understand us more and more every day. You can follow directions really well, and will do as you’re told when asked if you want to do laundry (you’ll go right to the washing machine and start pulling out clothes), turn off the light (but you only know where the light switch is in one room), ring the doorbell (it came in handy yesterday when I was carrying you, dishwasher detergent and a case of beer and needed your dad to come and answer the door), stick out your tongue, or give me what you have in your hands, you’ll do them with little to no hesitation. When I was getting frustrated with hanging up streamers for your party, I let out this frustrated “growl” and you mimicked me. Your father and I looked down at you sitting between us and were both like, “uh oh.” Don’t start mimicking us yet, please! I still swear too often!!
On September 3, you started walking. In late July you took your first steps, but on September 3, you took five or six steps at your Aunt’s house and you haven’t stopped since. Now on your birthday, you’re up to about ten steps at a time, often stopping and correcting yourself- while still standing- and continuing on. It’s very exciting to watch, and I’m glad it’s taken you this long to start walking because you were early doing everything else (rolling over, sitting up, army crawling and then real crawling). You’ve been pushing around everything you can in order to move on your feet instead of on your hands and knees (your diaper pail is your favorite, never mind the $80 Plan Toys wagon I bought you a few months ago), so I knew it was only a matter of time before you gained enough confidence to try it on your own. Life as I once knew it: over.
I’m looking forward to this new stage of your life, to learn more about how you think and what you have to say. Don’t feel like you have to rush though, time has already gone far too fast for my liking.
I’m sad to say that today, your birthday, was not a happy day. You came down with a fever first thing in the morning and made you miserable all day. I took you to the mall to treat you to some carrot/apple juice but you preferred my milk and then you threw up all over both of us. You napped on and off all day and were really limp and needed to be cuddled. You rarely comfort nurse anymore, but you did more times than I can count, and you even fell asleep at the breast- something you haven’t done for months. You usually are far too preoccupied to nurse during the day because there’s So! Much! To! Look! At! Even though you are sick and I felt so sorry for you, I enjoyed our time together today, knowing that I was literally the only one that could make you feel any better. I loved feeling your hot body heavy in my arms and feeling your tongue flutter like it did when you were brand new.
Happy Birthday, Ash. We love every inch, every movement, every sound that you are.
