First Birthday

Max's first birthday came and went -- we now have a one year old in the house! Since Max had his big party this summer, we just had a small family celebration on his birthday. We learned from our mistake after the Incredible Napless Christmas, and Max was forced to get a little shut-eye before his guests arrived. It must have worked, because he was a cheery little thing all afternoon.

In spite of our best efforts to not get him too many presents (especially right after Christmas), by the time all was said and done Max had more new toys than he knew what to do with! He's been enjoying having new things to play with, although we should probably put toys away for now so we can rotate them in and out -- that way he'll always have "new" things to entertain him. It was fun watching him help open presents -- he was a little more enthusiastic about ripping off wrapping paper and bows than he was at Christmas (probably the result of the pre-party nap). Of course, he still wanted to EAT said wrapping paper and bows.

For Max, his birthday cake was the best part of the day. Mom made him a "baby blocks" cake, so instead of one big cake there were a lot of little cakes. After his brother and sister helped him blow out his candles, he was given a whole little cake to investigate. I expected him to eat a few fistfuls of frosting and call it quits, but after the first few tastes he picked up the entire cake and tried to shove it into his mouth! He proceeded to demolish the whole cake -- what he didn't eat (or throw on the floor or grind into his clothes) he merrily mashed into oblivion on his high chair tray. He apparently inherited the family sweet tooth. ;) The cake eating highlights can be found on Flickr.

Max is crawling all over the place and creeping around on anything he can pull himself up on. I think it'll be a little bit before he takes his first steps, because he still seems to need to hold on to something to keep his balance. He says "ma ma" and "da da" and seems to know what they mean. He's also started waving and saying "bye bye" ("buh buh"). After getting really bad about going to bed, we've been working on making Max a better sleeper. We're making good progress - he now goes down for naps and at bedtime without any complaints. He was doing much better at waking up at night (he slept through the night twice last week), although we think his molars have started coming in, which upset the sleep schedule again. We'll get there eventually!

Max had his first official play date over the holidays. When he was in the NICU, there was a little girl (25 weeker) who was in the intensive care room with him. She was born a few weeks after Max, but we spoke with her parents a few times in the weeks before Max was upgraded to the Feeder/Grower room. As it turns out, her parents recently moved into the same town we live in, so we thought we'd reunite the former NICU roommates. :) The little girl is now almost a year old and doing great -- the babies had a good time visiting with each other (even if Max did insist on trying to pull her hair, crawling over her, and attempting to play with all her toys). It is amazing to see the progress that they've both made! We hope we can get them together again soon.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday before starting the long, slow trudge to spring. We're looking forward to warmer, sunnier weather -- Max says he wants to go to the zoo. ;)