1

I have 46 minutes to sum up 1. It's August 10th, but soon it will be August 11th and the magic of today will be gone.

42 minutes to sum up the joy of being with you every day. How all over the neglected hairy floors of our house are your little clothes, because you keep getting into water and dirt and leaves, and because when you try to drink out of straws, you forget to swallow sometimes, but you never forget to open your mouth and let the tea or Mountain Dew fall all over you.

The way you're learning so, so very quickly. Just today you learned how to blow kisses. Well, kind of: you put your palm on your cheek, or over your eye, then fling your hand from your face and go MMMMMMMMMMMUH! (To be fair, you put your hand over your mouth at least half of the time.) And how have you already figured out that shaking your head means "no"? How do you even know the CONCEPT of "no?"

You point at things. Just since last week; that's you seeing something cool and sharing it with us. Trucks, ceiling fans, televisions, dogs, everything amazing to you, and you're like, hey mom and dad, isn't that so cool over there? And we get genuinely excited, like YEAH RALEIGH WOW LOOK AT THAT LAMP, THAT IS AMAYYYYYZINNNNG!, but what's really amazing is you.

What's amazing is the curve of the back of your head, still so babyish. The way your hair curls - we call you "Little Mad Scientist Head." It's amazing how fast and confident you crawl around your world, scared only of stuffed animals with eyes.

1 evolved quickly from 1 day, speeding up exponentially as time went on. Were you always learning and growing so quickly, just quietly? One day you had a vocabulary of four words, and two days later you had eight or nine. Was your brain always doing that?

I couldn't stop thinking about you today. Woke up next to you like every day, our first interaction, smiles. Just this past weekend, we cleared out the storage room that was to be yours - back when we thought you were going to be sleeping in there - because you got so many birthday presents that we couldn't keep all your toys in the living room anymore. That's where we went first thing this morning, to play, because you're the birthday boy and even though you don't have a clue what that is, I wanted this day to be special for you.

Your dada drove home for lunch to see you, and the second he walked in the door he dropped his groceries on the floor of the foyer because you were reaching out for him to pick you up from my arms. We took him back to work after lunch, and I had to get some groceries too, and as I wheeled you through Food Lion asleep in your carseat I wanted to tell everyone I saw that you were 1 today. You make us so proud.

We got home and you played TrayWater while I made cupcakes, then we picked up dada again and the last hours of your day went about as usual, except messier. There was your baaAAAAaaaaaf, and dada and me trying to imitate the way you point, the way we always imitate you doing things - we always laugh so hard that way.

So now it's 33 minutes past the magical day where the minute of your birth went by. I constantly thought in awe of how you were just a baby this day last year, and now I don't even want to go into the baby sections in stores anymore because none of the toys there would keep your interest and most of the clothes there look like your size but are actually way too small.

Well, now it's actually 50 minutes past your birthday, you've woken up and I need to get you back to bed so I'm not going to spend time to think of a nice way to finish this. Happy birthday I love you!

1.

A Year Ago I Was In The Shower

That is so crazy to me. This time last year, we didn't have a baby yet. On this night last year, I was in the shower, in labor, only about 9 hours away from making the decision to go to the hospital. I was tired and bored because I'd been having contractions for like two days already and had had very little sleep, and the only way to not be in too much pain was by standing in the shower, and it gets boring in there.

But also, I was scared. Joe's and my life together had been wonderful, and once we finally achieved pregnancy, I didn't know why I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO HAVE A BABY. I didn't even know what a baby WAS; I hadn't been around any. Why would we change our good life by bringing into it such a responsibility, by making such a choice that could never be taken back? How was it possible that my "biological clock" could push us into doing something with the vague logic that, if we didn't, maybe our lives would be empty when we were old?

Then Raleigh was born, and there was no magical surge of mystical mommy-love. He was nice, sweet, but I guess in sort of a kitteny way. The only face I could think of to make in those first photos with him - how I regret now that I forced any expression - was a "Wow, I made this" face.

The day of his birth and the two or three right after that were some of the most perfect in my life. If I could re-live any time of my life, I would go back there and write everything down, capture it to be savored any time forever. The celebration; having all this food brought to me; people happy around me because I did something great. A triumphant moment still in the beginning of my life. It brought uncomfortable thoughts about the end of my life - growing up, more responsibility, getting older - but that was easy to ignore in the beautiful homecoming, with Joe having made the house spotless before Raleigh and I were released from the hospital.

But then I awoke to the day when those sparkling first days were over. Like that feeling you get when you've been on vacation but now it's over and you're back to your regular life but worse than regular, because you were just free and it's going to be a very long time before you get to be free again.

I had feared that my life would be erased. This is what the world says about having a kid: You will cease to exist and also cease to ever get any sleep. Raleigh needed when I didn't feel like giving, and I felt so alone with his neediness. Because of him, I couldn't do the fun stuff I had done before; my other life was lost to me. My marriage hadn't caught up to these new conditions yet. I had no idea things would get better. In the darkest moments of those newborn days, in my thoughts I had secret conversations with myself to figure out whether I really would choose to die to protect him like I was supposed to. I came to "yes" just by default, because that's what you do if you're decent...but honestly, it was reluctant. Even adoption crossed my mind. (But no way, the thought of someone else raising my baby made me feel territorial.)

Dark days. My baby was easy but early motherhood was hard and I thought my life was over.

I was wrong. I mean, it was really scary for a little while there, but as Raleigh became cooler and more able to do stuff instead of just generally needy and unrewarding, I fell in love.

He grew. We grew. As of just a few weeks ago, our marriage has caught up to these new conditions and finally finally we are back to where we belong with each other, which really changes everything. We are together now, and the three of us are a family now, with so much to look forward to and the grown-up days of our baby so, so far away from now.

As of last week, our perfect boy says "da-da" and "thank you" and "yellow," and they're all the same word. He says "bath" "baaAAAAaaaaaf," with that short "f," and there is almost nothing in my entire life that has delighted me more; every day I look forward to the moment lifting him from his high chair after dinner when I get to ask him if he's ready for his bath and he looks at me and says that. Every day I'm thrilled when I hand him something and he says "deh dehhhh" - thank you. And the way he makes these awful noises that are an imitation of any racecar sounds we make at him.

I'm sorry about that rough start taking up approximately 3/4ths of the year and 4/4ths of the pregnancy. Sorry that I couldn't just relax, stop being afraid, and have more happy times. Next time, when I know what to expect, (if there is a next time but we won't talk about that).....next time will be different. But Raleigh, I guess, will probably know that his beginning didn't go how it should have.

But hopefully he'll also know that we love him more than anything, say to each other every single day what a treasure he is, how we can't remember how we could've thought that our old life without him could possibly be enough.

Happy birthday, sweet boy. We love being with you and are so excited to see what this year brings.