One Whole Year

As of tomorrow morning it will be one year since the arrival of our little man. One year ago we got up in the morning and headed to the hospital to evict the little guy from his warm, comfy spot in the womb and introduce him to the world. Given his size I can't imagine he was all that comfy in there but we'll just leave that to speculation. Oh how foolish I was to think that since they were inducing, we'd meet our little guy by lunch time. My body had other plans. Almost 12 hours, exactly, after they hooked me up to everything our little guy was delivered and our lives changed forever.

Thinking back over the year I will say that there have definitely been difficult moments and Jake will say that the transition to parenthood, in general, was tough, but overall we were very, very lucky. We had a tough time keeping up with his demanding appetite at first but once we figured out our strategy and started to know what to look for (hello, growth spurts) it became easier. And he slept. Napping wasn't always his best activity but at night we were easily getting 6 hours out of him after the first month and by the time I went back to work at 12 weeks he was sleeping 10 to 11 hours most nights. Don't worry, I have every expectation that our next child will not be so cooperative.

I think currently we have actually hit our most difficult point so far and that is with the 1 year molars. Declan handled the arrival of his front teeth much better than I anticipated and thankfully because they started early (3 months) and by 9 months he had all 8. There was lots of drool and some fussy moments but nothing compared to how these molars have affected him. Poor kiddo, one minute he's laughing and clapping and the next minute he's completely distraught for no reason. I hope they pop through soon.

Jake may have said that the transition to parenthood was tough but from my perspective he did it with ease. He is such a wonderful father who has just as much of a hand in caring for Declan as I do. I never gave much thought to how wonderful and fascinating it is to watch a little person grow and develop but we are loving every little minute of it. He has his daddy's eyes and smile and so far it looks like he might have mommy's lack of patience. Here's hoping he doesn't hold on to that trait.

So we will obviously never know but I can only hope that he has spent his first year knowing the unending love and devotion we have to him and I hope that, despite tooth pain, he is happy with us as parents.