ONE rad little boy

**I wrote this while we were driving home from Vegas on Sunday...I made my baby boy sit in a car seat for five hours on his birthday.  Poor fourth child.**

My sweet baby boy will officially be one today at 2:40 pm. I jut read over my post about his delivery. I could almost feel the contractions and the emotions of the days and weeks leading up to that miraculous moment of meeting my littlest man. Those last weeks of pregnancy were some of the most difficult weeks of my life (because of the incredibly miserable PUPPP rash). This morning as I held Tucker (who is usually very wiggly) in my arms, he was still and I whispered in his ear how grateful I am that he is in our family, how much I love him, how I felt the very moment he was born, and that I would go through the misery all over again because the joy and privilege of having him in our lives heavily outweighed the discomfort. After I was done talking he laid his little head on my shoulder with his arms draped over mine for a moment. I felt that his spirit understood. Man, I love this little fella!

Tuck gets all sorts of attention and he loves it - he's still Mr. Personality when I take him to the store and people love the smiles he readily dishes out. His brothers and sister often proclaim him to be "the CUTEST baby in the world" and are super cute with him. Kelly has been sad about him turning 1 because it means he's growing up. :) Such a mama.

Tucker is a delightful little man. He really goes with the flow. Our life (swim lessons, play group, school pick-up, etc) doesn't always lend to the two naps he'd like every day, but he remains his happy little self even though I know he'd rather be in bed.

I think he'll be a full-fledge walker in the next month or less, but for now he really likes cruising with our fingers. Something I don't want to forget: Tuck sits on my lap sometimes to watch the kids. Pretty soon, though, I feel his chubby hands slide down my arms until they find my hands. Then he will run his hands along mine until he finds my two index fingers. Next he'll slide his bottom off of my lap and fully expects that I will jump to my feet so we can cruise around the room. I love it. I want to remember every sensation of that - his tiny hands wrapped around my fingers, his little body sliding down my legs....and a few steps in, he leans his head way back so that he can look up at me and smile/laugh. I can't help myself when he does that and I have to lean down and kiss his face a bunch. It usually turns into a game. He'll take a few steps and throw his head back expectantly, waiting for the kisses he knows will come. I love it.

Two bummers for our little guy: eczema (horrible) and a clogged tear duct that doesn't seem to be working itself out. We'll see what happens with that, asking the doc at his checkup tomorrow.

We love Tuck's mimic laugh...every time someone laughs, he throws his head back and joins in.  Ty said something about his "imitation laugh" and Kelly now calls it his "invitation laugh".  No chance I'll correct her, but I'm sure Max will.

  

  

The faux-hawk.  I can't give it up.  It was a natural phenomenon with his newborn hair and I loved it so much that it's my hairstyle of choice for his big-boy hair now.

Brother is anxious to get going with the big kids! Since he started taking a bottle at about 9 months he generally wants to take it sitting up so that he can see all of the action (there always seems to be a lot of it at our house.) He wants to be wherever his brothers and sisters are, which resulted in him climbing the baby gate a few months ago! Say wha?! He'd put his toes into the tiny holes on the baby gate and get himself over. So the baby gate was gone early and I have had to let him venture on the stairs by himself a little earlier than I normally do with my babes. But he's a champ! He seems more sure of his body and abilities and so I stay close enough to keep an eye but far enough to let him do his thing and have some independence.

I feel so blessed to be a mom and privileged to have Tucker's particular spirit and personality in our home. Happy Birthday to our littlest man!