Let them eat cake

First the news about Joshua:

His birthday was last week, so he's officially a one year old now. While he doesn't care much for parties yet, we used the excuse to invite a few friends of ours and a few friends of Samantha's over for cake. It was a fun afternoon. You can see that Joshua approves of birthday cake!

Things that one year olds eat other than birthday cake: tomatoes; broccoli; baby corn; cooked baby carrots; almost any kind of fruit but especially strawberries, peaches, plums, pears, blueberries, watermelon, and sometimes apples or mangoes or bananas but not so much with the cherries; cheerios (duh!), cream of wheat, grilled cheese sandwiches, and French fries. But his very favorite thing right now appears to be a cheese omelet. American, Havarti, or mild cheddar, if you please. He's not real big on smoked Gouda yet but give him some time.

Samantha was a tremendous help with the party. She's really devoted to her little brother, which is wonderful to see.

Joshua also had his one year checkup on Friday. He weighs 19lbs 11oz, is 29.5 inches long, and has a 17.5 inch head circumference. This puts him on the very small side for his age group: 9th percentile in weight, 6th percentile in head size. Or maybe it was vice versa. But that's higher than he used to be on both measures, and the pediatrician says he's healthy as an ox and perfectly proportioned. He just doesn't have any of those rolls of fat all over the arms and legs that most babies do; he's a lot of lean muscle mass. Would that the same could be said about his pater familias. Alas...

Amy's convinced me that Joshua actually does say "dada" with intent when looking at me. I just never hear it because he says it when I leave the room and he wants me to come back, or when he hears my voice down in the basement when I get home from work, before I've come up the stairs. But today, twice, he reached out toward me when Amy was holding him and said "dada", indicating that I was supposed to take him. So I guess he has his first word.

And his first 5 teeth, with at least two more and possibly as many as four more coming in. No wonder he's cranky as hell at night lately. Thus sayeth the pediatrician: "Give him more Motrin so he can sleep, and you can too. Pay no attention to what's written on the bottle: here's the correct dosage for a teething baby of his weight." So let it be written, so let it be done.

Finally, he's beginning to get the idea of this whole "walking" thing. He's walking now while holding onto my fingers, or holding onto furniture, and no longer trying to sit down and crawl as often. Of course if there's nothing to hang onto it's hands and knees on the floor and he's so fast and mobile that way, why not? But I think it won't be long before he's a true biped.

And that absurdly curly blond hair is just wild.