I have a 1 year-old.

Saying "I have a baby" is something that felt natural from the beginning. I mean you earn your stripes with childbirth so you should have something to show for your work. It is kind of like carrying around the diploma of motherhood on your hip. Well that little bundle of joy just kept getting bigger (I've thought about keeping him in one size smaller clothes just to see if it would slow things down a bit). He started walking more than two or three steps at a time two weeks ago and now he climbs. I mean, give a mom a second to get her bearings!
Everyone keeps telling me I should be scared/worried because the easy stuff is over. I'm wondering when the easy stuff started? If there is an easy period between newborn sleepless nights and toddler walking I think I missed it.
Saying "my son" is something that I still have to work on saying. I have often cheated by saying "my baby boy." Again the second one feels more natural, "my son" is something my mom says. I'm not nearly as cool as my mom yet. I do, however, have hope for the future.
I'm not sure when I was supposed to have grown up. I sure thought I knew everything by the age of 12. I was seriously impressive when I got my driver's license at 17 and when I graduated high school I really thought I had arrived. Then I did something stupid. "Just one thing?" you ask. Well for our purposes, yes, one stupid thing. Namely I moved to New York. Well if you think your big stuff where you live then one way to knock yourself down a peg or too is to move to a really big place with lots of other transplanted big stuffers. Then you can talk yourself silly comparing notes about how important you used to be. After I bandaged my ego it was a lot of fun but I left the experience humbled.
Then there was my first apartment. I'd like to say that was a lot of responsibility but it was really just rent and utilities. If you pay them you have a place to sleep and you have heat. If you don't...well...back to bunking at mom's house. Hardly life and death. Marriage on the other hand can absolutely be life threatening. Lucky for me I picked a very patient husband. I can honestly say he hardly ever wants to strangle me.
Then me and my honey one day decide to try the club membership and baby makes three. Do you remember that moment when you realized that this is it? From now on no midnight runs to Wal-mart hand in hand or spontaneous romantic get-aways without a diaper bag in tow. I remember that moment. I laid in the hospital bed and fleetingly imagined calmly disconnecting myself from cords and tubes and running away to Fernando's Hideaway to do the tango.
Saying I have a 1 year-old has made me unexpectedly serious and weepy. I who have scoffed at so much sentiment. I who have still not figured out when I was supposed to have "grown up" have a little boy. Daily he loses a bit more of those baby chubby cheeks, he walks a little faster, he learns volumes more. And he stops and smiles at me. He reaches for me to hold him. He lets me kiss his boo boos. And I wonder how my own mother can look at me now without seeing the frizzy headed little girl that reached for her back then and being just a little bit sad.
Today is bittersweet.

Happy Birthday Derek.