My Sweet Boy is One!
Samuel Arthur Wolf is one year old. I can’t believe it. My sweet baby came into this world- on the floor of my bathroom - with a loud grunt/scream and a HUUUUUUUUGE push - in the wee hours of the morning - one year ago today.
He has changed so much just in the last few weeks. When I look at him, I can see flashes of what he will look like as a young boy, as a teenager, as an adult, and I have almost cried several times in the past week just thinking about his future and how fast he is growing up.
Aside from walking all the time, he is now consistently saying “mama”. He really is a mama’s boy (and has the shirt to prove it). Sometimes it drives me crazy though, when he screams at the top of his lungs if I dare take 2 steps away from him, or go in the other room. He is not talking much other than Dada, Mama, and Dat - everything else is “dat”. I have still been trying sign language with him, though my efforts are sporadic. I know a lot of his fussiness is from his inability to communicate, so hopefully he will catch on to the signs, or start really talking soon so he (and I) can be less frustrated.
He is such a stereotypical boy. He loves to bang things together, open and close doors, scoot cars across the floor, and fit things into other things. He is constantly trying to figure out how things work and he gets so excited and laughs and squeals and claps when he is in the midst of another discovery. He also loves to climb stairs, and he makes a bee-line to any stairs he sees. When we are home, as soon as he hears the gate we have on our stairs open or close, he runs over and grabs onto the bars like a prisoner and screams and whines until we open the gate for him and let him climb up and down the stairs for a bit. He’s actually very good at climbing up and going down. He knows that he has to go down on his belly - feet first.
His body has changed a lot just in the last month. Now that he is walking he has slimmed down a ton. He is no longer my super chunky babe - though he still has enough chubbiness to squeeze and cuddle. His body is longer and leaner and his face is less round.
I have to admit, when I first looked down between his legs a few minutes after he was born (what is that squishy thing?) I was unsure of what to do with a boy. A girl is easy - I know girl parts, I know how girls think and what girls want and need. But a boy is so … weird, so unfamiliar, so foreign. I was really kind of thinking that I couldn’t bond with and love a boy the way I could a girl. That seems so silly to me now.
Sammy is such a different baby from how Rosie was. He seems more cuddly, more needy, less independent, more emotional. He is also into everything - all the time - he is non-stop moving and grabbing and pulling. I am constantly saying “uh-uh - not for Sammy” as he reaches for Rosie’s scissors, or a plant, or the (now broken) DVD player. Rosie seemed easier to entertain, or maybe I am just having selective memory - or maybe it is the combination of Rosie and Sammy that is the hard thing.
I can barely remember how little he was at birth. I hold him now in my arms, all 25 lbs of him, legs hanging over the edge of the glider when we nurse, struggling to keep his big, squirmy body on my lap, and I really miss the tiny, fragile baby. But, I love the toddler, the little boy he has become and is becoming on a daily basis. His laughter brings me such joy. His smile, his neediness, his mischieviousness, it all makes me so proud to be his mama.
I love you my sweet boy. Happy, happy birthday.
