ONE YEAR!

Can you believe it’s already been a year? That’s right, Massimo turned 12 months old last month (on the 14th of May). This year has been the fastest, most fun, most satisfying, and possibly most confusing year of our lives (so far). Mo was a complete person at birth, but it’s been so neat to see how he’s developed and grown and to see the person he’s becoming. He remains extremely happy, but he’s got quite a temper too. He’s a social boy who loves hanging out with lots of people, but he has started to show a hint of shyness around strangers. Not shyness, really, but he definitely acknowledges strangers in a specific way (with a bit of a coy look). It doesn’t take too much for them to get a smile out of him, though.

He’s very curious, as I suppose most children are. He doesn’t just want to pull everything out of the cabinets, but spends a long time studying each object and figuring out how it works. He loves things with multiple parts and buttons. He’s crazy about electronics, so the tv, phones, cameras, dishwasher, washing machine are all of great interest to him. He’s a master at finding new ways to play with old and familiar toys. And he loves socks.

Though at 12 months and one week he still was not walking on his own (but he was walking very well when holding just one hand), he now takes 8-10 steps at a time and does this often throughout the day. He’s a pro at crawling. He crawls faster than most people walk. The only difficulty is carrying stuff around. He’ll either carry it in his mouth, or he’ll hold it and do a one-armed crawl. It’s really impressive, actually. And even though he can’t walk, he LOVES to climb. This morning I turned around and found him sitting on a chair! He had used Stefano’s briefcase as a stool. Fortunately his legs are still short enough that he isn’t able to climb much, but he tries climbing our headboard (we won’t let him), from the sofa onto the windowsills, and he wishes he could climb into the tub. We’re very glad he’s not able to do the latter, but he will stand outside the tub while it’s filling up for his bath time. He stands there and throws stuff in. A few days ago, I walked in and found his potty, a pair of socks, and a pen floating in the tub.

Mo is still breastfeeding and we have no plans to stop, though his feeding pattern has definitely changed. He LOVES food. An example of a lunch he had recently is cheese ravioli with a home-made pasta sauce (plus carrots and zucchini with yogurt and bread) for lunch.  Spinach quiche is also popular. Today he had beets, kiwi, cottage cheese, and a cream of cauliflower and potato soup with truffle oil. Since he started feeding himself at six months, he’s really a pro now. He eats what we eat, minus all the salt, sugar, and meat. He mostly eats with his hands right off of his high chair tray, but he also eats off of real plates with real cutlery. He eats his morning cereal out of a glass bowl with his silver spoon from Tiffany’s. The only thing that’s a “problem” is that he always spills his water if it’s in a regular cup. It’s not that he isn’t able to hold it properly, it’s that he likes spilling it. This morning he was in the bedroom and pulled my glass of water from the nightstand. I walked into the room and heard slurping. When I walked around the edge of the bed, there he was sitting in a puddle of water drinking what was left in the glass.

Of course parenting Massimo isn’t ALL fun. It often takes over an hour to get him to sleep at bedtime and naptime, and he often won’t accept anyone at night except his mama (this is a fairly new development). Massimo can sometimes be aggressive with other babies and with us, and teaching him to be gentle, well… it hasn’t worked so far. He also likes to wake us up every morning by yanking my hair or pulling Stefano’s nose. And we still have that cliche struggle of finding balance between work and family. For Stefano, his long hours sometimes cause him to miss Mo’s bedtime. For me, as Mo’s primary caretaker, I don’t have enough hours for my work. And “me time” doesn’t exist, for either of Mo’s parents…

In Mo’s first year, he traveled to Stockholm (twice), Brussels, plus the U.S. (Texas, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, and New York). In this coming year, we’re hoping to make it to Spain, Finland, Germany, and England (and the U.S. again). Traveling with a baby has it’s challenges, but the memories we have are worth it all.

There’s so much more to say about Massimo turning a year old, but suffice it to say that we’re proud, amazed, and looking forward to this coming year. When we took Mo out for his birthday dinner (at Bocca), Stefano toasted us by saying, “Happy birthday, Massimo! We survived the first year!” To which I responded, “Survived? I think we thrived.”

All of Massimo’s birthday photos can be found on flickr.

Filed under fatherhood, food, motherhood, parenthood, photos, travel, twelfth month |