doin' the birthday dance

I never want to forget Squirty's first birthday. I'd been anticipating it for a few months. Well, since the day he was born, actually. The first year was, in many ways, a nightmare, replete with colic and acid reflux and post-partum depression. And this birthday was as much a milestone for him as it was for us. We survived!

This summer he has begun a delightful new sleeping-in thing. Most babies are up with the sun. Squirt was for a little while, but he was rarely a 7am-or-earlier baby. It was usually 7:10, 7:20...and as the months passed to the 9-month mark it reached 8am. Well this summer he's been absolutely fantastic, sleeping until 8-9ish am. This morning (August 20) he slept until 9:05. What baby does that?

So I'm sure I was awake and full of coffee on his birthday. I heard him on the monitor and went upstairs to greet him, as I do every morning. I opened the door singing "Happy Birthday" to him. He was standing in his crib in his pajamas, hands on the crib rail. His fat pink legs were visible through the crib bars. He had bed-head hair and a huge baby grin on his now-one-year-old face. As I sung to him, he began to sway and dance. Back and forth. To and fro. Swaying with the melody, as he has done since he was really quite young. He loves music; he loves to dance.

I don't ever want to forget that picture. Squirty in his crib in the dark room, on his first birthday, swaying back and forth and smiling up at me. At that particular moment I couldn't believe what an angel he seemed.

Of course, that whole 'angel' thing generally garners a few hearty guffaws around here on the average day.