Adventures In Being Ordinary: 12 Month Newsletter

Dear Rory,
Well, it's official. I am now the mother of a ONE YEAR OLD. That means that you have been alive for 12 whole months, 52 weeks, 365 days and 525,948 minutes. With numbers that big, I can't understand how it went so quickly, but it did and now the day has come. You had your first birthday party luau, blew out your first candle in front of a ton of cameras, and then smashed the cake in your face like all good birthday boys should.

And then, of course, you had a sugar meltdown and cried for the rest of your party, but hey, it was YOUR party, dude, so you can cry if you want to - right?

This last month leading up to your birthday has been filled with a frenzy of activity from you. You've been trying to assert your new independence as a toddler, and now I fully understand why mothers of toddlers always looked so wild-eyed and frazzled - because THEY ARE. Every item in our house is becoming locked, latched or tied down in some way, and just when we think we've baby proofed EVERYTHING possible, you get into something else. This week it's the dishwasher, the oven, and the garbage can. Next week, who knows?

You are also starting the phase where you have to have everything we have, so trying to use the television clicker, our cell phones, or the camera has become a constant power struggle. You are constantly grabbing at some gadget we have in our hands - and my God, are you persistant! It looks a little something like this:

But as much as a handful as you are these days, you've really started to become your own little person, and it's so amazing to watch. I love watching you figure out how to do something for the first time, like when you learned to drink through a straw or when you were able to put the circle shape through the circle hole all by yourself. I can see the wheels turning in your head and then the light goes on in your eyes and it makes it all worth it.

I know that you'll be walking anytime now (yikes!), since you love to grab onto anything that moves and use it to get around, including your cousin Marin's baby doll stroller, which nearly gave your father a heart attack, so of course I'm posting a picture of it just to rub it in! You look so proud of yourself when you're able to get where you want to go - and as scary as it is to think of you being that mobile, I know that you're going to love it.