Day 365: 1 Year

One year has passed. I can't believe it. His party was Sunday and today, it's quiet time to reflect I guess.

The past year has been the single most amazing journey I have ever been on. I have never been closer to life. Closer to the essence. I would imagine I was close when I went through my first year too but it takes a little distance to see the details sometimes. Observing Atom's launch truly gave me a perspective, I now understand, I had always lacked.

Each second, minute, hour, day, week, and month revealed magic. Never has a single breath carried such weight. Meeting my wife took my breath away, sure, but Atom brought it back. Does everyone feel this way? Did my parents? Are we now part of a larger club of people, let's call them Parents, that has witnessed life in all of it's power and glory and walked away with profound wisdom?

Hmmm. Profound wisdom is a hard hill to climb. Maybe I am getting a little ahead of myself. Profound wisdom probably arrives after the second year or third year. Although there was the one week after college graduation when I was positive I was shuck full of Wisdom…I guess for now I will be happy just knowing that indeed there is beautiful innocence kicking around in the world wrapped up in tiny little baby bundles.

In true year in review fashion I will now proceed with some of Atom's highlights for the year…

Birth
the first night being beyond exhaustion but to excited to sleep or let him out of our sight
how he had no eye brows, wrinkles, and that thing under your nose when he was born
going through 8-10 diapers a day
his first cry (wah, wah, wah)
no knowing how to adjust the straps on the car seat at the hospital so having to change his outfit so we could actually bring him home
operating on no sleep for the first three months
First smile
First laugh
First hug
first time his eyes followed me across the room
watching him watch Sharon
seeing his face explode with joy every time Sharon walks into the room
tummy time
his face eating his first food
his little teeth
making fart noises back and forth with him
holding him tight and signing john lennon's beautiful boy at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the morning
his first crawl
two fingers in his mouth
the first time he "got" something and watching it bubble over his face
wondering if he has memorized every episode Law and Order
seeing him pull himself up
the way he points at everything
seeing him play with peanut
watching our families welcome him
realizing he understands his name for the first time
wondering if he thinks his name is actually Baby Atom
seeing his tiny hand doing the sign for milk even though he cant verbalize it
baby bejourning
sharing him with other people


and finally...watching the people my wife and I are becoming. It's hard to not want to be a better person around him. He deserves it and so do we. I guess we just never realized it until now.

Day 304: The Precious Art of the Tantrum

Atom is starting to show signs of Tantrums. It is the funniest thing to see mostly because he isn't very good at them and he doesn't seem to fully commit to them yet. He can easily get distracted mid-tantrum if something shiny, new, or within a 12 inch circumference catches his eye. In fact he has been known to launch into a fit (throw his head back, rocket his hands into the air, hit the rain machine) one moment and be laughing hysterically the next.

Where is he learning this behavior? Granted I can be grumpy at times, especially when I miss my programs, but I rarely ever show the flair for drama that he does. Tantrums must be deeply grained into our chemical makeup. That can be the only answer. A love for chocolate, an unhealthy dependency on Google Search, and tantrums appear to the Holy Trinity of our souls.

Right now the whole thing is very comical but once again I have flash backs to the pre-baby me where the site of a tantrum-ized kid at a mall drew very little sympathy from for the  parent. But that was the old me. The new me is wondering if we are ever going to be out at say a restaurant with Atom and if we are going to be those parents grasping at our last wits trying to convince that peas really DO taste good.

The new me also thinks if I see the old me (obviously in the form of some one else's "me") trying to avoid eye contact with me while Atom is doing the spaghetti man crying on the floor somewhere that I won't give them a second thought. I will be too busy trying to figure out how to convince Atom that big boys listen to their parents and all the while knowing this little secret...the joy of parenthood outshines any untimely public outbursts. And if he keeps this up he clearly has a date with a little gold statue at the Kodak Theatre down the road.

Day 295: Thanksgiving Monkey Business