almost one.

We are less than two weeks away from being parents to a 1-year-old. I was telling Nate over lunch on Sunday that if I had to pick one word to describe the past year besides "awesome," it would be "exhausting." Nate said, "Yeah, but you wouldn't have it any other way."

He's right. I would take exhausted with Elijah over well-rested and no baby any day. He is so, so fun. And most of the time, he is a happy little guy. Even when he's not, it is never a burden. Never an inconvenience. We have no regrets of receiving this gift from the Lord. When Elijah was born, Nate said, "I don't ever want to go back to life-without-Elijah." I whole-heartedly agree.

Caught ya!

In the last week, Elijah has taken up walking—and he is pretty good at it! He still crawls mostly because it is so much faster, but it's super cute to see him pull up on the wall and let go and then proceed across the room in what our friend describes as "the drunken zombie." Of course walking comes with falling, and falling with tears and bruised leggies and sometimes a bruised face. But we help him up and he's back at it again.

Our house has been on the market for a few days, so we have been trying to stay out of the way while people come through for showings. We were out of the house all weekend, so Saturday I took Elijah to the downtown library for a puppet show. It was great! The show was definitely better for older kids who can sit still for 15–20 minutes, but Elijah did fine. We made friends with a 10-month-old named Harley and caught up with our friends Molly and Eli.

I like taking Elijah to places with other kids. He usually loves being around other people and watching them or interacting, and I'm loving and appreciating that other parents are almost always so nice. Like in an "we're-all-in-this-together" kind of way. We're all tired and challenged and loving it.

In the beginning, I think I wasn't sure how it would be nursing Elijah to 1 year. That was my goal. And well, we are still going strong with no sign of stopping. Mostly this is because Elijah doesn't self feed. He doesn't want to put things in his mouth. (So teaching a sippy cup has been a flop. He just throws it on the floor.) He eats purees fine, as long as they aren't too thick. Otherwise he gags or gets this terrible look on his face and pushes it out with his tongue.

So we are working on it, trying and introducing new textures and thicknesses. His sitter is on board with helping him practice every day. We will address it with his pediatrician at his 12-month appt., but our friend who is an occupational therapist says it's a bit too early to worry too much about it. I've still been worrying since about 8 months, but I told Nate that someday we will say, "Remember when we thought Elijah would never eat?"

We aren't exactly sure how we will celebrate Elijah's first birthday. He probably won't eat cake, but from the couple of licks I've shared, I know he loves ice cream. :-) We might be able to make the trip up to STL that for another Cousin Camp and to see my sister and brother-in-law. Elijah and Daniel haven't been together since Christmas, so a visit is long overdue!