My Son Accidentally Turned One When I Wasn't Looking

When Eve was born, and I was experimenting with the idea of being a "Stay At Home Mom," the first few months of her life seemed to last forever -- for better and worse. I was terrified (OMG I'M GOING TO BREAK THE BABY) and exhausted and confused and stressed and happy and hormonal and also bored, in the way only parents of infants can understand "bored."

I went back to work when she was about eight months old, and eased into it, and dealt with separation and still do.

Townsend is a different story.

He was born, I took leave, but it was totally unlike my experience with Eve. I wasn't quite as terrified, first of all, and by then we had the help of nannies. I wasn't alone with a baby every second of every day and night, worrying about when Ish or I would break the baby. My hormones were a little wackier, but I was a thousand times more relaxed, and days weren't endless.

There weren't months of endless/joyous/sleepless "terror-bonding" with Towns.

So while of course I love and feel close to my darling baby boy...it's just...it's just gone by so quickly.

How has it been a whole YEAR? Yeah. A YEAR.

Well, and since I don't know how to write a blog post about a baby that doesn't sound like every other blog post about every other baby on the planet, here comes the gushing (followed, naturally, by a video):

Towns is sweet and funny, cute and charming. He is a completely un-fussy kid. He pretend moan-cries when he's hungry, which is often. Every time he gets hungry, he behaves as though he has never been fed and might never be fed again. He is very dramatic this way. Whhhhyyyyyyyy won't annnnyyyyyoooonnnnneeee feeeeeeeeeed meeeeeee!??!

He also fake-cries when we close the baby-gate because he wants nothing more than to be allowed to scurry up the stairs and throw himself off of things.

He adores his sister. He is fearless, and is walking, and running, and getting up and down single steps without holding on to things. (Eve would sit in order to get down even just a single stair until she was nearly two.) 

Towns will dance at any HINT of music, including Eve singing. Or chanting "Let's Go GI-ants!"

He actually naps, which Eve wasn't very good at. He is more or less sleeping through the night, although we have lots of 5 a.m. wake-ups because he's just soooooooooo starving. 

He's shy around strangers, and actually the only REAL tears I've ever seen him crying have been because someone he didn't know said hello to him when he wasn't expecting it. But that's probably more because he's a year old than that he hates people. I think.

He is adorable because I say so, and I clearly have a totally unbiased viewpoint.

To prove this unbiased opinion, I offer you this video, which I wish I could say took the better part of a weekend to put together, but actually took about 17 minutes.  One year = two minutes.

Mahna-Mahna*!

I created this video using an app called Animoto (a Clever Girls client I decided to try out just for fun). And since I happen to know that they have a deal running right now, you can make a full-length video for free using code: CleverFL. It really takes no time at all. In fact, most of the time I spent was trying to decide which song to use. I am glad I had an excuse to try Animoto because I have a special loathing for iMovie and couldn't bear to use it.

*The Muppets movie is like my favorite kids' movie ever. I am a giant, GIANT Muppets fan, and this has only made my love stronger.