Eleven Months

Eleven months old.

That's what you are today, kid. You are officially eleven months old. Which means, in one more month, you're going to be twelve months old. Which, as we all know, means we're going to have to start measuring your age in years now, instead of months.

One. Whole. Year.

Where does the time go?

I remember bringing you home from the hospital, and swaddling you up, and laying you in your crib. You looked so small. You looked slightly yellow. You had so much hair!

You were beautiful.

We monitored every single breath you took, recorded every single diaper we changed, and obsessed over every single feeding you sat down to. We kept you away from everybody but your immediate family. The slightest sniffle from someone, anyone, and they weren't allowed in our house. We single-handedly kept Purell in business. If your blanket hit the ground? It was washed. If you dropped your pacifier? It was disinfected. We were constantly watching for signs that something might be wrong with you.

Those signs never came.

We were ecstatic!

And now? Well, now, things have changed a bit. I still keep track of your feedings, but I figure if we're riding the 75th percentile in weight, I maybe don't need to obsess over your appetite quite so much. The diapers we change? I'd like to forget them, not record them for posterity. Toys on the ground? Whatever. You spend most of your time on the ground anyway, so if you're going to catch something, it's going to happen whether I wash your toys or not. I don't want you putting your mouth on the chairs at the airport (which, incidentally, makes me the meanest mommy IN THE WORLD, judging from the screams you unleashed on me this past weekend when I tried to stop you from doing this very thing), and after changing your diaper in a public bathroom, I like to wipe you down with an anti-bacterial wipe because you like to grab at things that I assume are pretty freaking dirty, but I think this just makes me a normal, if slightly germaphobic, mother. We've let you out of the bubble, but I'm still going to take a couple of precautions to keep you as healthy as I can.

I'm your mother. It's what I do. You'll just have to get used to it, because I'm pretty sure it's not going to change any time soon.

You understand things now. I can see the wheels turning, I can see it on your face when you're trying to figure something out. I'm amazed at how quickly you've become your own little person. I think you know what 'no' means, but that doesn't seem to stop you from doing what you want. You have a sense of humor. You have a temper. You love attention. You have the greatest (face scrunched up, eyes closed, open mouth) smile I've ever seen, one that's guaranteed to get a smile out of me in return.

You have the worst baby comb-over. I have no idea what to do with it, but I've invested in some barrettes, so we're going to see how that goes.

You're my little bug. You'll always be my little bug. I love you more than I ever thought was possible. I will do whatever it takes to keep you happy and healthy as you insist on doing this whole 'growing up' thing, whether I want you to or not.

But you're still not allowed to chew on public chairs. I do have my limits, after all.

Happy birthday, kiddo!

Let's try to take this next month a little slower than the last, shall we?