an entire year old

Well, the day has finally come.. I was in denial about it for as long as I could be, but.. Noah is officially and fully.. an entire year old.

Sigh.

In a lot of ways he still seems like so much of a baby to me.. he doesn't like wearing shoes, still has his binky (Lily lost interest in hers when her teeth started coming in), and the way he curls his legs up to sleep. But in other ways he seems so far from a baby- just in little tiny ways like.. he's walking. (Which Lily wasn't doing for another month or so.)

He still primarily crawls because it gets him to where he needs to be faster, but the ratio is steadily shifting. And the more he realizes he can walk from point a to b, the more he's finding points to walk to. And birthday balloons have certainly helped- the idea of getting over to them is a big motivator for him.

He LOVES dinosaurs. Lily had a few, but he's completely taken them over. He has even been raaawring at them the last few months. He also started taking over Lily's cars and other things with wheels.. or even anything that he can slide along the floor.

It's so interesting to me that he's gravitated more towards Lily's stereotypically boy things, but he does like her Lalaloopsy dolls too. Often to chew on, but he also seems interested in what they look like. There are a few medium-sized ones that he used to really like.. I thought it might have been because they looked a little like babies.. just like he was.

He likes Mickey Mouse, Harry the Bunny from BabyFirstTV, and smashing down on anything with buttons. He loves changing the tv channels, turning it off and on, and bangs on the box when touching it does nothing to the tv because Lily is  playing a video game instead.

One of my favorites is that he knows my name (ma ma ma ma ma) .. and says it constantly. When he's around me or when he wants to be around me (if I'm out). He's started talking about Jason too (duhduhduh).. now we just need work on how to say Lily.

He's very interested in observing things and 'taking it all in.' Things that roll or can be waved around are interesting to him. And he's mellow. Calm. Not at all like his sister. He takes all her craziness in stride.. and he loves her. The way he looks at her. They way he injects himself into almost everything she does. And he has the best laugh.. the biggest smile.

What else can I say? He's wonderful. In some ways his first year has flown by, but in other ways it totally has not. I've never gotten so little sleep in my life- so I've been awake for a lot more of the last year, but so much more tired and full of caffeine. But it's worth it. I wouldn't change any of it. My children are the best.

Happy first birthday, Noah.