Ewan is one year old!

The new stats are:

Weight: 24 pounds, 11 ounces (76th percentile)
Length/Height: 31.5 inches (92nd percentile)
Head circumference: 19.5 inches (Off the charts!)

He's slowing down a little (except for that noggin), but still growing well!

One year! Somehow, to me there is something almost as exciting about Ewan turning one as there was about having him in the first place. Maybe it's because the excitement over having a baby was drawn out over the course of a nine month pregnancy and what felt like an equally long labor and birth, and the subsequent newborn period was clouded by such intense sleep deprivation. I also think it's such a milestone for parents in that it feels like such an accomplishment that you survived the first year. Whatever the reason, I've been so excited about Ewan's first birthday that I've practically been stopping strangers on the street to tell them that he's turning one.

I say "surviving"the first year, and it often felt like it was just about survival, but in many ways it was also the best year of my life. I won't ever pretend that becoming a parent wasn't the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's also been the best. Even during the most difficult moments, I've felt more fulfilled than I ever have in my life. Before I had Ewan I spent a lot of mental energy trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. Since having him, I haven't had a single moment of that. I have a total new sense of purpose and I'm entirely too busy for existential crises. There's a whole Zen thing to parenting that people don't really tell you about. It really forces you to stay in the moment. And then of course there's that new kind and level of love that is pretty much the best feeling you could ever experience. All of that makes for one happy, peaceful, and extremely grateful mama. Most of the time anyway.

Although there are still plenty of difficult moments, overall we're having the most fun we've had yet. These days there is something new with Ewan literally every day. It ranges from him getting just a little more confident in his standing and cruising to him learning a new word or phrase to us making up a new fun game, trick, or move, but often it's all of the above.

Ewan isn't walking yet, but is talking up a storm and is going through a phase of learning a new word or two every day. He has over 20 intelligible words in his vocabulary that he uses consistently and has at least some idea of their meaning. At the rate he's going, he'll be able to beat us in Scrabble by age three. What's funny is that we've been using sign language with him for several months now and he has not picked up a single sign (unless you count waving). The idea behind signing with babies is that typically they can learn how to sign before they learn how to talk, and therefore it helps them be able to communicate earlier than they otherwise would. I guess we have an exception to that rule.

In terms of interests this month, wheels ("cucks") tops the list. Because of this, Ewan's favorite room in our house (if you can call it that), like Troy's, is our garage (and if you've ever seen our garage, you know there are dozens of cucks in there). Besides spinning wheels and pushing trucks around the floor, his favorite activities are eating (and "num num" is his favorite word - thanks for teaching him that one, Gram!), being read to and "reading" board books, and climbing on top of things (and sliding back down, if that's an option). Ewan generally loves life and is very busy and active (way too much to sleep), although he can also sit and focus on an activity for several minutes at a time. We continue to be grateful that he has such an easy temperament.

As for the actual birthday festivities, there is a lot to share, so I'm going to save that for another post. I'll just say that we all had a great time. For now, I'm going to leave you with some more photos from this month.

Happy first birthday to our little man! Ewan, we love you more than you could ever know.