Motherhood is...

...coming home to your toddler's awesome sense of bedtime fashion.

Pre-Christmas Thoughts

Jake's in bed sleeping quite peacefully, and I'm enjoying a glass of wine, admiring our Christmas decorations, listening to Christmas music, and clearing our camera of pictures from the past couple of weeks. I found this great one of Jakey checking out the tree last weekend when we first put everything out.

Jake loves the tree, especially an ornament of Sports Center Santa that Ben and I bought last year. He laughs and giggles and points every time he sees it. We can tell he's excited about all that's happening, he's just not sure what exactly it is that he's excited about. Ben and I put together a gingerbread house today, and Jake had a lot of fun looking, touching, and tasting some of our handy work:

All in all, Jake has been pretty good with all the decorations. We're teaching him to be "gentle" and "use soft hands", while also encouraging his curiosity. Tonight, Jake got into the ribbons that I've been using to decorate with, so I helped him get wrapped up in them. I don't think he was as excited about them as I have been:

Tonight, these pictures have got me thinking about last Christmas. As happy as I was to have this new little man in my life, it was also a very difficult holiday away from my family, stressed, anxious, and sleep-deprived, and adjusting to life as a new mom. Regardless, Jakey managed to find wonder in the season.

As beautiful as Jake's first Christmas was, though, I think we're all going to enjoy this one quite a bit more.

What I didn't expect...

There's a lot about motherhood that I didn't realize prior to Jake making his grand entrance last year. For instance, sleep deprivation (the 1-2 hour blocks of sleep right after Jake was born) wasn't too bad, until I suddenly started getting more sleep (3-4 hour blocks) and became utterly useless. And I didn't know that 5 hours of sleep could feel so good when your child is 2 months old, but so bad when he's almost a year.

I also didn't expect to be picking pieces of poop out of my son's hair when he had a case of explosive diarrhea at 4 am. I didn't expect to pick pieces of poop out of the tub during bath time. And I didn't expect to talk about poop nearly as often as I now obviously do.

I had no idea there was such a thing as breast milk oversupply, nor how easy AND difficult pumping at work would be. I had no idea that I could lose weight so quickly, nor that 140 pounds before a baby looks waaaay different than 140 post-pregnancy-pounds. I didn't realize how lucky I would be if my body made enough milk for Jake, or any milk at all. I had no clue how utterly amazing nursing would be, and how sad it would feel to think about stopping as my son's first birthday edged closer.

I never knew how proud I could be of a tiny little baby boy who just learned to smile, to laugh, to sit up, to crawl, or to walk. I didn't know that clapping and bouncing to the alphabet song could be so much fun. And I wasn't ready for my breath to be taken away when my little boy looked at me for the first time and said "mama" (just this morning).

Most of all, I never knew I could love someone so much, with every fiber of my being, as if he were created just for me to love and care for. Because he was. Happy first birthday to the most amazing human being I ever laid eyes on - my little Jakey (who evidently doesn't like birthday hats).

Spooky cutie

We've suspected it for a while, but we now have independent confirmation from an unbiased third party - Our little Jakey is the cutest. Baby. Ever.

And really, with the way he pulled off this costume on his first Halloween, who could ever suggest otherwise. ;)

Cutest monkey ever!

A brand new day

Between fevers, coughs, stomach bugs, and teething, Jakey has been a complete mess the past month. This downturn was exacerbated by a string of stressful family events, the combination of which has produced more sleepless nights than I can count. Although we've experienced brief moments of happiness, parenting has mostly been an exercise in just getting through.

As of today's afternoon nap, though, we appear to be on an upward swing. Ben and I walked into the nursery to find Jake bouncing up and down in his crib with a humongous smile on his face. We all celebrated this glorious awakening with dancing and bouncing and singing several rounds of "Jump around... Jump around... Jump up, jump up and get down!", all the while Jake was laughing Mom's favorite sound in the whole wide world. It's been a while since I've heard that much laughter from my sweet little boy.

Best of all, Ben's no longer asking if it's possible to have a mutant baby who won't grow teeth. Life is good.

Notice the bottom tooth, food is so much better when you can chew it!