Well it has officially been a year since I gave birth to my favorite human. Soren is a complete joy in our lives and we couldn't imagine what life would be like without him. He is a sweet, gentle, goofy boy. He loves cars, trucks, planes, animals and books. He loves to play peek-a-boo and chase. He loves to play in the water and the bath which we have worked very hard on. We got him new gear toys for his birthday that suction onto the bath and he will stand outside the bath and just spin them. He is very interested in all the same things his papa is, gears, latches, screws, lights, vents, he is all about figuring out how things work.
He can crawl super fast and is much less interested in walking because of it, which we are totally okay with! He does stand up on his own and walk around furniture and if you hold his hands. Lately he has been working very hard on placing toys and objects upright on flat surfaces, like aligning his animals upright and placing blocks on top of one another. You can check him out doing some of this on his birthday vlog here:
Soren started off big, not super big, but 8lbs 13.5oz and 21.5 inches. At his 1 month appt he was at 80th percentile or more for everything. At his one year (on Monday) he came in at 50th percentile for weight and 32nd percentile for height. He still wears 6m clothes and most of his 12m stuff is too big. Most of his clothes that I got for fall are 12-18m to make sure that they fit but I am a little worried that they won't end up fitting for that. But even if they don't he we can roll the pants and he can wear the shirts anytime because they are button ups.
This first year has been a whirlwind. Looking at Soren it's hard to believe that he was once so small. So many moms say that they can't believe how big their babies have gotten or that they're already one. I can, this year has definitely felt like a year. It feels like Soren has been with us forever. Maybe it's because I've been with him practically every moment of every day but I am glad to say that I have no sadness about how fast or slow this past year went. I do wish that I had held him more when he was tiny. It was so easy to put him down when he was sleeping and get house cleaning done or have some "me time." With the next baby I will not be letting him/her go during that stage.
Soren is an incredible kid, I mean really. I have watched a lot of children and he is, hands down, the happiest baby I have ever met. He is easy to distract when he is upset and there is literally nothing that food can't fix. He makes being a mother easy. I still get frustrated with him at times, when he wants to nurse three times in one hour just to go to sleep, or when he is holding onto my legs while I try to rush around the kitchen to make breakfast. But I also love those things, they won't last forever. Someday I'll look down for him while making breakfast and my little boy will be getting dressed to go to school. Someday I'll hear him close his door at night and wish that he would let me hold him until he fell asleep just one more time. And someday will be the last day that I ever carry my little boy. It breaks my heart thinking about someday, so I don't. I have lived in the moment, trying to be present, soak it in and
remember everything. I want to have those moments in my heart forever, even the ones that I don't particularly like right now.
We also officially have a year of breastfeeding under our belt. That was a hard one and I had an easy road. I didn't have any bouts of mastitis, thrush, clogged ducts, pain, nothing. But I did feel like it was going to kill me. At the beginning I had a cyst and found it at around a week postpartum, I was POSITIVE it was breast cancer. I had all the thoughts about leaving my baby, and Jacob raising Soren without me. It was terrible but I got over it relatively quickly once Jacob put me in the car and drove me around our favorite neighborhood. Kind of like when you can't get your baby to sleep! After that I didn't have any issues with my breasts, but my body went through some SHIT. I feel like most of the education centered around breastfeeding is teaching you how to make sure you don't get mastitis and make sure you drink enough water, there is not enough emphasis on taking the right supplements, supporting your body using nutrition and making sure that you actually have enough nutrients to make milk. I mean, lets be honest, your body will make milk using the last grain of protein left in there. Your body will literally drain itself dry in order to feed that baby. That's what I had trouble with. No matter how hard I tried, around 7/8 months I thought that it was going to kill me. But I drank a boat-load of water, ate like a fiend and was able to push through. Now I feel like I can continue to nurse no problem, when a couple months ago I was going to wean right at a year.
We have done a lot this year. We went to the Ellensburg Rodeo when Soren was 2-weeks old (a 3-hour drive for us), we went to Hood River, OR when he was 4-months old. We've gone to Seattle countless times to be with family. In February Soren went on his first plane to see his Great Grandma in Arizona where we adventured around Scottsdale and spent time at the Desert Museum. This Summer we went on 2 camping trips (so far) and we spend a weekend in Bend, OR. We've gone to the zoo, the aquarium, the beach, the pool, the forest. We've gone hiking, been on walks, gone on runs. We've gone blueberry picking, snacked on blackberries in our neighborhood and enjoyed fresh peas from our garden. When you have a baby, everything is new, and as they become older and are really discovering their world, you see the world with new eyes. Each experience is a new one, every new food, every new place. It truly is magical.
This first year has been a dream. A beautiful dream. I could not have asked for a more wonderful year with our little boy and our family. I am so excited for whats to come and cannot wait to share it with you all! Now I've gotta go catch that one-year old boy running around naked in my kitchen :)
Photos from our family photoshoot are by Malory Larson Photography!
