1!

Baby A is one year old today, on the seventh day of the seventh month! His father and I were talking about how we definitely feel like he's been with us for a whole year, although when we remember the birth itself it seems like it wasn't that long ago. When I try to compare with how I perceived D when she was one year old, I'd say that with this second child I have a much clearer sense that a one-year-old is still very much a baby. I've also been much more aware during A's first year that various stages of baby-dom are actually so short. The newborn stage lasts only a few weeks, and then a couple months later they're sitting up on their own, and suddenly, well, they're one!

Here are some fun facts about this particular one year old:

Favourite (aka only) foods: guacamole (and avocado in general), hummus, and rice crackers (to suck the salt off) -- and (I suppose it goes without saying!) breastmilk!
Favourite books: Barbara Reid's Mother Goose book; and he's still into books with pictures of babies, particularly one we got from the library called Baby Moves
Favourite toys: He'll play with any object but he especially likes sitting on an old ride-on toy we have, rolling a ball back and forth, dropping peg puzzle pieces from the high chair to the floor, and examining certain Playmobil pieces that he is consistently able to locate in D's bin of Playmobils.
Cutest skills: giving a "kiss" (A's kiss consists of making a kissing-like noise with his tongue between his teeth. It involves neither puckering of the lips nor physical contact with the recipient of the kiss.); playing peekaboo (At this point peekaboo means putting his hand up against his face for a millisecond and then pulling it away over and over in rapid succession.)
Mobility: D started crawling before she turned one but A is not crawling yet. Just recently he has started to scoot around on his bum a bit - he pushes himself backwards while sitting. He also has a wide reach while sitting and can practically do the splits as he reaches for something. He also likes to be held up in a standing position.
Verbal skills: His all-purpose words are da, ta, na and ma, used in varying combinations to mean any number of things. The most memorable is how he'll stretch out his arm to indicate something he wants to go see (like the swings!) and he'll exclaim, "Da!"

What else can I tell y'all? Any particular questions about him?

We celebrated A's birthday last night while on vacation in Vermont with LePapa's family. The birthday boy seemed freaked out by the candles and was not interested in the chocolate cake, but he did like the singing and clapping. We'll celebrate here at home tomorrow.

He's such a happy and expressive little guy and I feel so proud of him. I'm proud of all the things he's learned to do since he was born and I'm proud to have him in my family. LePapa and I were marveling at the very obvious fact that before he was born we didn't know who he would be or what he would be like. And now he's his very own particular self.

I'll leave you with two photos from the last couple days:

He let his sister and cousin style his hair.

He loooves sink baths! But in this particular sink, he bashed his mouth on the middle part and chipped a tiny piece off one of his front teeth!