Oh my goodness my son turned one today! What a year it has been. Some of the most depressing, most anxious, most horrible times in my life happened in this last year. Also the most wonderful and joyous things have happened too. I truly love being a mother, all the bad stuff was worth it. I am really a changed person. I've had to prioritize a lot of stuff and have had to let a lot of things go, some that were really hard to let go of.
I think Brent and I have done a really good job. Our baby boy is flourishing. He's happy and growing, and very attached to both of us. We've really gotten into a harmony of being with him and having him in our lives, I don't feel like life could go on with out him. It was a huge adjustment, but we figured it out.
I have come to realize that we are way more relaxed than average. It took me a while to get relaxed, at first I was very anxious, but now we sit back and give him a lot of autonomy. We aren't hoverers and you won't ever find us disinfecting things. We let him learn by falling if he needs to and we've decided that we are pro-dirt and germs for the most part. He's been very healthy too. While I've never been sicker. He's had one fever, a half a dozen colds, one 12 hour period of vomiting and one short, mild bout of diarrhea from his first cold (too much mucus in the system we were told). He's also only had diaper rash once (during the diarrhea) thanks to our cloth diapering and elimination communication. No ear infections or anything else.
He started signing for milk, the one sign I've been doing consistently, which makes me wish I had done other signs consistently. It's quite amazing to have a little 12 month old telling you exactly what he wants.
I am now officially an extended breast-feeder, which is good because he still gets the majority of his calories from breast milk. I plan to continue for at least another year. He's never had a single sip of formula nor a single mouthful of pureed baby food. It's a total time saver, I don't yet have to think about his food at all. He has my breasts and bits of whatever we are eating and it's working great. Baby food is such a scam, I'm glad I avoided it. I have total faith that his eating skills will get better over the next year to the point where he's eating much more solids than he is now. Food is a non-issue and I plan on keeping it that way.
I've also discovered that co-sleeping makes traveling a breeze too. We don't have to pack a crib! And he's big enough now that he can actually climb out of hotel beds on his own pretty well. One queen or king sized bed is all we need for now. It's like the world was made for us.
Elimination communication has been mostly derailed for now, we have hit a major potty pause. We caught one pee on our week vacation and just today he peed on to the floor right after getting off the potty. I'm going to try to just do morning pees and after nap pees for now and just not stress. Again, I want potty to be a non-issue, just like food and sleep. He will eat when he needs to and sleep when he needs to. I barely can think about scheduling my own life, I can't imagine trying to schedule his. It means I sometimes have to wake him up from a nap to bring him places, but it all works out.
My only piece of advice to anyone wanting to have kids is that, for god sake, have kids with someone who is awesome. I can't imagine how hard this would all have been without my amazing husband. Children strain marriages because they change them fundamentally. We are not the couple we were before we had Cedric. In some ways it's better in some ways it's worse. We have less time for each other and there simply isn't anything to be done about it, it's just how it is, we'll have more time later. We got through this, so I think we can get through anything. Brent is an amazing father, I only hope he feels the same way about me.
Happy birthday to my son, who gave me the best job in the world.
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