I’m sitting here the day before your birthday trying to compose this and not cry all over the keyboard. This year has gone by so quickly! Last year at this time I was waddling around anxiously awaiting the day you would be here. The night before you were born I told daddy that I thought I was having contractions and he looked really worried. I woke him up in the middle of the night telling him it was time to go. I’ve never seen him move so quickly or with more focus! The day you were born was the happiest day of my life. I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight than I did that day…my sweet, beautiful baby boy Luke. I’ve never had more fun than I did during the delivery. It was just the most positive and fun experience ever. Your dad was so supportive and sweet. I thought he might pass out but he performed like an ace. He was so excited. He was texting everyone in the state of Missouri after you were born. The entire family was there waiting out in the hall to hear your first wails. You sure did give them a show. You were born with a serious set of lungs! After you were born I didn’t think you could get any better. However, you have grown and changed and gotten better every single day! I never thought that would be possible. I felt you were about as good as it gets the moment I saw you.
This last month you have started to pull up. Dad and I saw you pull up together for the first time when you were at the dishwasher and we nearly lost our minds! We both yelled and scared the dickens out of you. You fell over and started crying. Since then you have pulled up about a million times. You are doing so well at pulling up that you often stand with just one hand bracing yourself very nonchalantly. I have to watch you now because you stand and try to get into everything! You love to watch the water go down the drain in the bathtub. You try to grab the water just before it goes down and you nearly land directly on your head each time. I have to watch your every move and something tells me you are only about to get busier! All of this action makes you a bit more accident prone. The other night you slipped while crawling and smacked your sweet head into the frame of the door. You got an immediate goose egg. I wanted to take you to the ER because I hadn’t ever seen anything grow quite that quickly. I certainly hadn’t ever heard you cry that hard. Daddy said we needed to wait. He said you were a boy and you would get many bumps and bruises. He was right. You rebounded very quickly. You were off and crawling again within a few minutes. I tried chasing you around with a bag of frozen vegetable on your head. You wanted no part of that. You will be celebrating your first birthday party with a giant bruise in the middle of your forehead. Something tells me it won’t bother you much, though.
There isn’t a drawer or a cabinet in the house that you don’t adore. I know that I should try to redirect you to keep you out of them but sometimes it keeps you busy while I am boiling a pot of pasta or putting on my eye liner. You are so cute when you pull each item out of a drawer. You will hold up a bottle straight in the air and look at me with a smile as if you have just found the coolest bottle of eye make-up remover in the history of the world. You are always so proud of each of your newly found treasures. The other morning when we woke up we found an old shower head that you had discovered somewhere behind our bathroom door. We are finding random things scattered throughout the house all the time.
You are the greatest eater ever. I put cut up broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus on your tray and you eat the pieces like candy. You are now drinking from a cup for most of the day. However, you can’t stand a sippy cup. You drink from a regular cup that we hold. You only take about 7 ounces from a bottle and drink the rest from a big boy cup. This has made me very happy because the pediatrician nearly gave me a heart attack about getting you off the bottle at our last visit. I am starting to learn that while those experts give timelines to achieve certain milestones, we will get to each one in our own time.
You have eight beautiful teeth showing through now. You grin at us with the biggest, best, most contagious smiles ever. Thank you for letting us witnesses so many of those smiles for one full year. Thank you for bringing so much laughter and so many smiles to our faces. We love you with all of our hearts. Happy first birthday, Luke.
Love,
Mama and Daddy
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