A year of great joy

One year ago my life changed forever. Irreversibly. Beautifully. Chaotically. And meaningfully.

My little Benjamin Jordan turns the big 1 on Wednesday.

And we love birthdays in my house (ok, I force everyone to love birthdays in my house). So this will be a busy blog post week for me. Hold on tight.

This will be one of many "birthday" related posts and my sweet sweet son.

In this one, I wanted to share in a bit of a montage the progression and highlights of the first year that "my heart began walking outside of my chest" (*sigh* its so true...)

February 13th at 12:42 am, after an induction and about 15 hours of labor and 20 minutes of pushing, we were blessed to finally meet this sweet face. I literally could not get over how flawless he was.

The first month was a glorious blurr. I do remember a lot of cuddling, staring in wonder and disbelief, picture taking and sleeping on the new recliner I insisted we did not need.

The second month I started feeling slightly less incompetant. Slightly. Ben had his first holiday of Easter where he slept through the entire service and enjoyed hanging out with all of his cousins. He started some "ooh"s and "ahh"s  and that first glorious smile.

Somewhere between the 2nd and third month we decided to give cloth diapers a try. I tend to be somewhat hippi-ish and waste and earth conscious, but it seemed too difficult from the outside. After deciding it wouldn't hurt to try, I did. And we haven't turned back since. I'm an AIO kind of girl. Elemenals or Chelory if you understand.

In May, on Mothers day, he was baptised. A beautiful day with lots of family. My momma was there in spirit. The priest pretty much drenched Ben in the waters, which Ben didn't appreciate so much.

 

By month 5 it was finally getting warm enough to take himoutside for long periods of time. He loves the outdoors. True story, any time he fusses, a no-fail way to get him to calm down is to simply step outside, onto the front step or onto the deck or for walks. So needless to say he enjoyed some fun time helping us garden and pull weeds and generally looking cute. To be fair we were going on many a walk with our friend April back in March when it was in the 80s.

 

 If you remember it got hotter than Hades in July, his 6th month, so we spent a lot of time indoors. Sans many clothes, just a diaper. Now of course in winter I dress him up every day. He started rolling a ton and was quickly thereafter able to start sitting up on his own. . I did get really good at taking him with me everywhere. Grocery store, Menards, girls trips. I belive this was the month of the Galena girls trip and seeing Ms. Jennie in Iowa, no? He was soooo good. But that is normal.

 

 

August is Bill's birthday, so did our first real family trip, (not counting holidays and family visits) only up to Door County, but a trip/vacation none the less. All 3 of us. All official. We did a fish boil, hiked the Penisula State Park, did wineries, played in the lake. Shopped. And ate. A lot. We also had a fun visit with baby cousin Lia. Looks like she loves to laugh as well!

 

 

This is also when we started solids. I believe his first food was heavily milked rice cereal. Then switched to oatmeal. Had that for several weeks and added things like sweet potato. Avocado. He has since expanded his repituare of foods and rarely says no to anything.

Oh that 8th month was starting to get fun. No really. Ben's first tooth emerged. And we have been soo incredibly blessed that teething has been no big deal. A little fussy, eh. maybe woke up a tiny but more. but thats it. The biting that came later when he had some uppers and lowers in was a different story. He also started doing super cute things on command like clapping. He gets so proud of himself with stuff like this.

 

 

Month 9 was some fall fun. We went to a pumkin patch and this little fall celebration at our hospital where is insane cuteness as Master Yoda got him into the local paper. He also enjoyed helping me pass out Trick or Treats and now looks for Kitty when we say her name.

 

 

 

 

Month 10 had some major milestones like his first crawling! Army crawl, and will do it this way for months! He started turning pages in book when read together (one of my favorite things!) He is so stinking interactive and becoming more and more fun. This is also when we celebrating Thanksiving at Gramma Burris' and visited Santa for the first time. Which, he was not a big fan.

And then came the month of Christmas. It was so much fun watching him open up his first presents under a tree with his Christmas pjs and a Santa hat. Then spending time with family. I took probably about 1,000 pictures of him that day. And don't forget the craziness of the sister Christmas with Ben's first ever brewery tour. My favortie thing he started doing this month is chasing kitty when he crawls and shouting "hi-ya!" as he crawls. Also throwing his own ball and chasing after it and repeating that process over and over.

 

Month 12

And here we are. The 12th and final month. Its weird to think that this time last year I was anxiously anticipating his arrival. He has gone from crawling army style to crawling on all fours. He pulls himself up to standing and goes all the way up the stairs. He waves hello to everyone. He pulls out all of his little toy boxes and raids the cabinets. I love letting him explore and get into things. I really love his adventurous spirit and do not wanter to damper it, only if it gets unsafe. And he has learned how to "pet kitty nice!" It melts my heart.

 

And in a flash my little guy is a toddler. I want to soak in every single second. I can't even get mad when he occaionally wakes up at 2 am. I just feed him and stare at him and rub my fingers hrough his little tufets of blonde hair, becasue well, before I know it, he will be going to Kindergarten, college, getting married, etc. And right now, is what I have.

What a wonderful exciting year it has been.

With my "Little Buddy"