Michael's First Birthday

One year has gone by already My oh my, how time flies!

Has it been one year already? As Gretchen has said, the days go slow, but the months just fly by. And flying he has done. Just in the last month he has gotten several teeth, has mastered crawling, and has gotten very adept at standing and walking around furniture.

We go to the doctor later in July to get his "official" stats, but from our measurements, he is now about 30" tall and over 25 pounds, after starting out at 19" and under 5 pounds. In terms of height and weight, there is no indication that he was two months premature. In other development, he has shown only minimal signs of slower progress. Small enough as to be inconsequential.

As an example of him growing up, since those three teeth have come in he has gradually been turning up his nose at baby food and is only wanting the real thing. Which works out ok. We just feed him some of what we are eating. We has essentially been doing that anyway, as Gretchen had been doing a good job of making baby food out of our dinner leftovers. So Michael had been tasting our food most of the time. We are hoping that this will help prevent having a picky eater, since he won't be used to "special" food.

His party was good. He wound up sleeping through most of it. He ate lunch with everyone, but promptly got overwhelmed by people in his face. Almost 50 people came, with about half being children, so there was plenty to be overwhelmed by. While he was napping we opened up his gifts. And he woke up just in time for cake. Actually cupcakes. He dutifully played with it like finger painting, but he didn't eat much of it.

That is one skill he hasn't really worked on. Feeding himself. He likes to pick up food and play with it, but mostly he likes dropping things on the floor.

Well, thinking back to what was going on a year ago, we are both feeling very blessed with how Michael has grown and developed. It was a very tough start, but he has definitely pulled through with flying colors. Thanks to all who helped us through those trying times.