a year in review

Today is Evan's first birthday. One year ago today, I was in labor with Evan at this time, probably not yet to the screaming and the uttering-every-cliche-in-the-book stage ("I can't do this anymore", "Get him out of me", "I don't want to have this baby after all", "I think I'm going to die"), but I wasn't comfortable, I'm sure. My labor lasted almost 17 hours from start to finish (and the experience of childbirth without painkillers has firmly convinced me that I'm done having biological babies), but (here comes another cliche) it was all worth it. Evan arrived at 12:41pm, and we chose a name we'd hardly been considering because it seemed to fit so much more than the others (leading contenders up to that point were Elliot and Ezra, among others I can no longer recall, and no, we weren't consciously trying to choose an "E" name, we just happened to like a lot of them).

And we have had a busy year. This is Evan one year ago:

And this is Evan a few days ago, sitting on the stairs, his new favorite place to relax:

At one year old, he is walking, climbing, and communicating. (Still not sleeping through the night, but I'm confident that will happen someday.) He uses sign language: "more" and "drink"; he says a few simple words: out, doggie, Daddy, tree, flower, banana, ball, cow (and moos, or rather, "doos"), car, shoes, down (many of these can only be understood by Greg and me, but he is consistent and intentional, so it counts); he understands much more than he can say and he can follow simple commands.

Over the year he has been steadily becoming more vocal and social, though he can be very shy, and very attached to Mom and Dad. Evan is also very persistent (he is not easily distracted when he really wants something, and along with this he can become very loud and demanding -- the kid has a great shriek), affectionate (very snuggly baby), observant (he likes watching people, particularly kids), and rather reserved. Like everyone else in this family, Evan is pretty laid-back most of the time, and loves the outdoors. He is learning to play independently, he likes music, he is starting to enjoy books more and more, and he still loves to eat -- favorite foods include, well, just about anything.

This year has come and gone so quickly. It has been amazing to watch my baby growing up. We have had our challenges, to be sure, but in retrospect they don't seem nearly as important as the accomplishments. And now it is just about time to say goodbye to babyhood, and hello to the toddler years.