Friday, July 3, 2009

Alex - One Year

Alex turned one on Monday, June 29th. He had his one year check-up today.



Birth Stats
3 lbs, 7.7 ozs
16.25 inches










One Year
19 lbs, 9 ozs
28.25 inches








What a difference a year makes.

A year ago he was lying in the hospital, impossibly small. Today he grins at me and squeals with delight when I make one of his toy cars flip over. He pulls up on anything that will hold still (furniture, grown-ups, the cat... poor long suffering cat). He climbed up into my chair today, pulling on my pants leg and hoisting himself up with just the strength in his own body.

A year ago he had his first meal, 3 milliliters of expressed breast milk. Today he ate oatmeal,carrots, cereal puffs, most of a banana, what seemed like an entire zucchini and squash, mashed potatoes, juice, milk; I had to stop giving him the zucchini because just because its veggies doesn't mean its not overeating.

A year ago we had to weigh his diapers to make sure that he was peeing enough, checking that he was getting enough fluid from his IV and the milk he was tube fed. Today... well let's just say that we're no longer concerned about whether or not he pees enough.

A year ago I was crying in my hospital room, recovering from an emergency C-section, knowing that I would go home without my baby. Today we popped him in his car seat and took him to Pizzeria Uno (where he ate most of the previously mentioned veggies), just that easy.

He's strong and he's healthy. The heart murmur they picked up early on has vanished. His umbilical hernia has healed itself. He has eczema, but so do I, so no biggie. We'll put some cream on it and thank the universe for sparing us.

He's a normal one year old, this close to walking. He has several words and he actually listens to me when I tell him to put something in his toy bucket or to bring me something (I don't expect this to last long).

This year has been terribly hard and wonderfully easy at the same time.

Breastfeeding was hard, so hard. Milk that never came in, nipples that were bigger than his mouth. Giving it up was painful, but necessary for my sanity and my relationship with Alex. Feeding was never easy in those first months, but letting go of the guilt about my "failure" made meals a pleasure again. A time to smell his sweet hair and nuzzle his cheeks. Now, he eats like a champ and will even share with me (i.e. forcibly shoves food in my mouth when he thinks something is especially tasty).

Co-sleeping, once I gave up on the bassinet, was sweet, lovely and hard to give up, even when the karate chops to the throat and the kicks to the crotch made sleeping difficult. Snuggling Alex to sleep at night is still one of the greatest pleasures in my life. Sometimes I get him out of his crib when I go to bed just so I can wake up to his sweet smile.

He is an active, sweet, demanding, generous, sometimes cuddly, all-boy kind of boy. I can't wait to see what happens this year.

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