I Have a Teenager

I'm pretty sure I start every birthday post with, "You are growing so fast," or "You are the best baby." I can't help it. These things are true every month and it blows me away everytime I think about it.

Lucky 13 started out with a gail force wind...CHRISTMAS! I don't think I took a single picture of you on Christmas day. I KNOW. You are going to be talking about this years from now in therapy. At the end of the day, the whole Christmas-presents-Santa-Baby Jesus thing was of no interest to you. You were, however, interested in the Christmas tree, the glass ornaments and getting your fingers on what ever you could. At one point, early one morning while I was "resting my eyes" on the couch, I heard "cling cling cling cling." I opened one eye to you tugging on an ornament pratically bringing down the whole tree. A few weeks ago while sitting in one of my church meetings I noticed your little friend, who happens to be one day older than you, laying on the floor holding the bottle he was drinking. A wave of envy blew over me, as I wished you would hold our own bottle. All I could think is wow, how that would save me a good 10 minutes every morning. I've tried to get you to hold your own bottle, but you throw your hands in the air expecting me to wave a palm leaf and feed you grapes. It wasn't more than two days later when I walked into preschool to pick you up and lo and behold, there you were on the floor holding your own bottle! I was so happy and cheered you on like it was the first time ever. Miss Katelyn told me you had been holding your own bottle for awhile. You were busted. It wasn't until the next morning when I prepared your bottle and laid you on the floor to drink it did I began to miss our 10 minutes of cuddle time.

You are so close to walking. You took your first steps recently, but you are still quite nervous on your two feet and still prefer crawling. This is ok with me. I have a feeling once you figure out your feet, you will be unstoppable. We have recently given you the nickname of "The Destroyer." This is because you get your hands on anything within reach and rip it up, throw it, eat it, drag it through the house. A little ball of dust and chaos you are.

I can't end without mentioning your first haircut. As we can all see, you don't have much hair to begin with, but while it was all business in the front, you had a little party going on in the back. So The Dad got out the clippers and cut off your mullet. I am obsessed with rubbing your fuzzy round head. I am obsessed with you.

*Pictures were taken by Auntie Kati.