One year

Dear Fuller,

Today you are one. As in, today you have been alive in the outside world for one full year.

Yesterday, as we were shopping in Bi-Lo and your were shrieking your disappointment at being strapped into the cart seat, I thought about how when you were a teeny, tiny 7 pounds, 7 ounces, you barely bleated your discomfort at anything. Now, a year later, you have mastered the art of sounding your displeasure.

At home you cry, loudly, sit on the floor and fold your body in half until your nose is touching the ground. Your tone is one of agony and torture, even though the only thing that could have possibly caused this display of sadness is the simple fact that I walked from one side of the room to the other. You also have begun flinging yourself prone to the floor and I imagine that in the next few months you will master the art of kicking and screaming. So far you just have the screaming down.

Don’t get me wrong; it isn’t all about the crying, yelling, and screaming. We also have laughing, delightful shrieking, and babbling, which were not there at all a year ago.

I love the laughing, shrieking, and babbling. It makes me want to hug you, kiss you, and give you all the love in the world. When you are happily crawling around the living room, tossing your blocks from one end of the carpet to the other, I have to get down on the floor and participate as well. I want to be there when you rediscover the baby book for the millionth time. I want to point out how fun it is to knock down the tower of yogurt cups. I gaze in amazement as I watch you pull all the rings off the stacking pole, wondering if this is the time that you will figure out how to put them back. And I laugh with you when you delight at the music from your ball chute from Tia Sarah-Ginny & Tio Nat.

But, there are times when I am not on the floor with you and you are happy to move about the house, discovering that the hutch doors are clamped shut by a maze of rubber bands. You find delight in going to your room and playing with the diaper champ, amazed that the top moves up and down, as far as your little arm will reach.

When you are out of sight and suddenly go silent, I know that I should investigate to find what exactly you are into that you shouldn’t be- have you found your way to the bookshelf and are now removing your father’s comic books from the shelf? Are you intrigued by what we left on the dining room table and have reached up, grabbed the junk mail and are now trying to open it with your teeth? Or is it the gigantic bag of dog food that has caught your attention and you want to know exactly how to get into it? And then there is the bin of too-small clothes that you love to pull out and toss the contents because all bins have to be empty in your presence. If there is a full bin and you discover them, in a few minutes, they will be empty.

Your favorite method of transportation is still crawling. When you pull up and cruise around a room, it is mainly to inspect the things you are hanging on to. When you pull up on your push toy and actually push it, you don’t realize that you are actually transporting yourself from point A to point B. To you, this is a game, a fun thing to do. Well, stop it. It isn’t a game, it is exercise to get you to do what you already know how to do- WALK.

My favorite part of the day is the time when you go to bed. Not that I want you to go to bed, because I love spending time with you, but when we get to the end of the day and you are sleeping calmly in your crib, I know that we have made it through another day. God has given us the strength to get up, play, eat, work, and learn all in another day.

And Fuller, please know that your Daddy and I know that it is only with the strength given to us by God that we have made it through this first year. You are still alive because He has blessed us with an abundance of patience, wisdom, and love. That is something that I pray you will know on your own soon.

Hey! You are still alive and we are all here as a testament to that.

Happy Birthday my little Fullerine.

Love,
Momma