The Boy Turns One

A year ago today, we welcomed Calvin into the world.  And what a year it’s been.

Granted, the last half of this past year blew by incredibly quickly because of Life Changes for the whole family.  I barely remember what we did 4 months ago, as most of our time was spent packing and cleaning and looking into buying houses.

Through all that time, though, Calvin kept getting bigger!  It’s amazing how much progress he’s made, especially in comparison with his big sister.  Due to ear infections, it took her a bit longer to be mobile.  Perhaps Calvin is more motivated to follow Meg around though, because he’s been crawling for a few months now and late last week started to try taking a few steps for the first time.  He’s routinely standing up from a squat all by himself, standing for nearly a minute at a time before sitting back down again.  He’s ready to walk, but hasn’t quite taken the plunge yet.

Within the last month or so, he’s also finally, finally, slept consistently through the night.  He’ll cry out occasionally but can usually get himself back to sleep.  I’m thinking the creepy peacock wallpaper in his room has something to do with it, but it seems like shortly after the move to the new house in Marshall, his sleeping situation (and ours…) improved dramatically.

Now that he’s a year old, we’re also in the process of weaning him off of Brooke faster than we were before.  Meg was on a bottle long before this point in her life, but Brooke’s been able to keep feeding Calvin.  Generally, she’s only doing it first thing in the morning and right before bedtime.  We don’t even have to do it at naptime anymore to calm him down.  She’ll slowly scale it back, but at this point, it seems like he can make it pretty well without needing that particular form of comfort.  Big boy finally growing up a bit!

Other than his progress, life has been busy for the rest of us.  They say your first semester is the hardest and they aren’t kidding.  I’m frequently working 12 hr days during the week in order to stay ahead, but I don’t mind it so far.  Brooke’s still getting settled with her job in Sedalia, but things are starting to look up on that front, too.  I’ll post more about the house later, but we’ve got half of the electrical system done, some important plumbing done, some new appliances, and we re-did the bathroom upstairs by ourselves in a little over a week (there will definitely be a post on that one).  Long-story short, we’re making progress with the house and are nearly “settled.”

Because of that, we were able to have a birthday party for Calvin this past weekend at the house.  We had around 16 people over and, as the weather was gorgeous, we set things up outside.  Grilled burgers, had many sides, and of course, birthday cake.  Calvin napped through half the party and wasn’t exactly “smiley” after he woke up, but I think he still had a fun time, and definitely got some fun toys.

Regardless, Calvin’s done well this past year and, though his sleeping schedule was terrible for, oh, 10 months of his life, I think we’re finally past it.  At least we’re to the point when he and Meg can play together in their room(s) by themselves, giving us a few extra moments of peace.

It’s worth something, for sure.