one

Our little lion turned one last month. One! As is our tradition for birthdays, we celebrated for a full week with family hikes, a rose garden picnic, beach lounging, fall leaf marveling, and daily consumption of sweet treats. The highlight of the week was a family swim at a small indoor water park. Both kids were in heaven, but especially Jethro. He was born in the water, and he loves being in water. So much squealing and splashing and general spazzing out. 

My favorite part of his birthday week was having intentional time to reflect and remember and feel all the joy and gratitude of being Jethro's mama. I love my little Bubba boy so much. I loved feeling his strong baby legs grow inside me. I loved touching the soft sinews of his sweet baby head as he was being born. I love nuzzling him and nursing him. I love sleeping with his tiny, warm body next to mine. I love feeling my heart and mind expand as he teaches me new things about himself and the world around us. When I'm not completely exhausted from parenting two tiny ones (so exhausting!), I can hardly believe he is here. Our days are utterly exhausting and pure joy all at once. 

Jethro continues to be a fierce, tender, and happy little being. He is a fierce lion cub with a very strong roar when he wants us to hear him. Teaching him to be gentle and patient is quite the task before us! I get it though, so that helps. Most people don't exactly know me to be the most patient, gentle person in the world. 

Jethro is also incredibly tender, especially in the way he likes me to hold and touch him. It has taken me some time to get in sync with him in this department. But he's a patient teacher, and I'm an eager student, and we have found the sweetest, most tender rhythm together. And lastly, he is still the giggliest baby I've ever known. Naomi Bear is definitely the funniest person in the world to him. He can hardly breathe sometimes when she gets him going with her shenanigans and tickles and snuggles. He shares sweet, uninhibited, deep belly laughs with all of us though and brings so much joy to our family. 

Alas, here he is... A photo summary of our first year with Jethro Lavi. 

Dear Jethro, 

My sweet little lion. You are absolutely beautiful. You are radiant joy. You are fierce and tender all at once. You are the light that came to us in the midst of darkness. You brought us such abundance. We thank God for your miraculous life every single day. I'm so happy you're my little Ba. I'm so happy I get to be your Mama. I'm so happy you're here. I love you now and always.

~Mama~

Jethro's milestones at 13 months

Teeth:  Jethro had 8 teeth by the mere age of 10 months and is currently working on a couple of molars. If there's one thing I absolutely hate about parenting, it's teething. I remember wanting to throw an actual party when Naomi cut her last tooth. My babies are not happy when those tiny, white blades try to push their way through, which makes sense! And sleep during such a time? Ha. Utterly impossible. I can feel a mountain of pressure under Jethro's poor gums from his first molar, and with that? Well, let's just say there's very little sleep happening over here and a lot of four-letter words exclaimed in my mind at 2am and 3am. Also at 3:45, 4:30, 4:45, 4:48, 5:17, 5:30... You get the point. Sigh. Fingers crossed that this molar is about to cut, and we'll get a little break before the next one. Thank God these babies are otherwise irresistible.

Crawling & Standing: He started doing an army crawl at 7 months and decided he wanted to stick with that for awhile. At 10 months, he transitioned to a proper four-legged crawl. And now he's all but walking. He currently walks from one room to the next by holding onto the wall or cabinet or whatever he can use for support. He also stands on his own but no independent steps yet. Soon though!

Talking: He's desperately trying to talk and makes all manner of fervent efforts to grunt, mumble, mimic, and babble his way into communication. Current words include Mama (first word) :), Papa, "Na-Na" (Naomi), hot, ball, "cock-a" (cock-a-doodle-doo), "baaaaa" (sheep sound, of course), "Da ta" (Don't Touch). Current signs (ASL) include "All done", "More", "Papa", "Hot" (we have daily fires in our wood stove, so he's got this one down). He can also say "Bye". As soon as one of us puts on a jacket, he b-lines for the door, waves vigorously, and screams "Ba! Ba!" Funny little man.