The fastest year in history

It was a Thursday evening a little over a year ago, and I had just finished checking baseball scores on the Internet and was ready to go to bed. My wife, Sabine, stopped me for before I changed into my raggy, blue Umbros and told me she thought her water just broke. We called the midwife and she told us to come on in to the hospital.

Six hours later, we were parents and our lives had changed, for the better, forever.

Now we have a one year old at home and on his birthday, Saturday, he showed off everywhere we went by sticking his pointer finger in the air, as if he knew that he was one year old. We capitalized on this new trick by constantly asking him how old he was. It seems like he has a new trick every day these days. A few weeks ago, he would stand by the window in his room and lift the blue curtain to hide his face. I would ask the room where Colin was and he would then peek out from behind or beneath the curtain and laugh. A few days later, he would close and open the door in his room and play the Peek-A-Boo game again.

Then came the walking and it, like everything else, seemed to happen overnight.

Colin had been standing on his own and taking a step before falling for a day or two before we went to our monthly theatre meeting. A natural ham like his father, Colin decided that now that he had a crowd to watch him he would really start walking. While the membership voted on the slate of plays for the next season, Colin was taking 10-12 steps at a time, grabbing on to the legs of anybody nearby for support or for minor breathers. The 10-12 steps at a time continued for a week or two until this past weekend. Now he is walking all the time and I can tell that the rules have changed.

Gone are the days when he would be in crawling distance and I could monitor him from a small distance. I have been welcomed into a new era, one where I will be worn out from chasing him down.

Yes, Colin has grown up a lot since he was born. He used to fit in the crook of my arm, where he would curl up and I would hold his bottle for him. Now, he stretches out on our bed, taking up lots of space, and holds the bottle himself. I used to feed him mushed up meals from jars, but now he feeds himself. I’m still needed though because he often nonchalantly drops a chicken finger or bite of a waffle to the ground and I must retrieve it for him. I’m also good to rock with on that one night a week that he doesn’t want his mom to put him to bed. Holding him has even become a better experience now because he holds back, almost like a hug.

What an awesome year it has been. I have been amazed nearly every day since he was born and I hope that sense of wonder never leaves me. Everything he has done has seemed momentous, from sitting himself up and grabbing his toes to dancing to the “Frosty the Snowman” song sung by an animatronic snowman that my father gave him for Christmas. So what if we hear it three or more times a day, every day, at dinner?

Some days I can’t even believe our good fortune. Colin is an outgoing little boy, who has a smile for everyone, contagious laughter and is also the biggest flirt I have ever seen. We are going to be in trouble when this kid gets into high school.
When people first learned that we were going to have a baby, they warned us to enjoy every minute of it, even the sleepless nights and the bouts with fussiness, because “it goes by so fast.” I dismissed those warnings as cliches. After all, a year is a year, right? It is always 365 days and days are always 24 hours long.

I was wrong.

Even though it has been 369 days since Colin was born, the past year flew by, and while I’m aching for it to slow down, I can’t wait to see what our little boy will surprise us with next.