New word as of this morning: “Fish.” He said it to the aquarium this morning, often. He said it when we came to the fish page in his new pets book. Can you tell the new aquarium is a hit? He was kissing it yesterday. He won’t stop waving at them.

One year ago, it was swelteringly hot, dreadfully humid, and I had a baby after only thirty-one weeks of pregnancy. Now we have a strong, bright, bouncy one year old boy, the temperature is half the seasonal average, and we had about fifteen millimeteres of rain yesterday. We made sure we had that swingset and the sandbox on purpose for the party. And in theory, it was a lovely idea. Ah well.

I’ve heard that first birthday parties can go one of two ways: badly, or really well. Ours went really well. We are so proud of how confidently Liam handled himself. He was cheerful, played well, had fun, and demonstrably appreciated the physical gifts he was given. (And he will appreciate the paper gifts that are going into his RESP in the future, I’m sure, and we appreciate them deeply in the meantime!) Tal arrived bearing a bunch of balloons, which proceeded to delight every single child over the course of the afternoon and features in about eighty percent of the photos because they got tied to the coffee table in the middle of the room. First foods were some carrot cupcake, half a cookie with icing that he scrounged from an abandoned plate (at least I hope it was abandoned; anyone, if the half-cookie iced in green that you left vanished, now you know who stole it), and green grapes. (Yes, well, it was a party; we kind of gave up on controlling the first foods one at a time. Besides, other than the grapes, I made everything myself, so I knew exactly what was in it.) And he ate dinner afterwards, and nursed to sleep just fine, and slept a normal night, too. Thank you to everyone who came over to make it a special day, especially Matthieu, Teela, and Devon! We’ll have a family BBQ sometime later in the summer so everyone can enjoy the swings and sandbox when the weather’s better. And the food I’d made went over very nicely. There are no cheese biscuit things left, alas. Although I expected this, it’s still very sad. I’m glad I deliberately kept some of everything else away in containers to protect it for today’s family luncheon, otherwise I’d be serving Liam’s grandparents crumbs.

Liam is now in size 4 diapers, and size 4 shoes too I discovered when I bought him his first sandals last week. (Not that he’s been able to wear them since, but at least now we have them.) He shares everything with everyone, holding out food and toys and books to cats, people, and other toys. It’s a lovely phase, and we’re enjoying it very much, particularly since we know the next phase is the “Mine!” phase. He’s well over the 12 month size in most clothes, too, and looks more and more like a little boy instead of a baby. I bought a set of cloth diapers last week as well, something that I’ve been waiting to do until he moved into the toddler size, and they’ve gone over just fine. It’s relief to me, because I was squirming about the amount of landfill we were creating. When he was tiny we used biodegradable diapers, but then people started buying us a diaper supply and we kept using them. And then when his system stabilised enough to be predictable, he was so close to the toddler size that I decided to wait so we wouldn’t have to put away the infant size soon after we’d bought them.

His favourite band is Invisible. If we put the spring gig CD on and crank the volume up on Folsom Prison Blues (because really, how else does one listen to it? and then everything else just stays loud, which is also right and good) he grabs the edge of the table and boogies with a big grin on his face. (Have we mentioned that we can play Sheena Is A Punk Rocker and A D E on his piano/xylophone?) He loves it when we sing, particularly the Five Little Ducks song or the ABC song. For some reason, he’s not as big on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (which is a good thing because I cannot remember to not sing “like a tea-tray in the sky” when the third line rolls around) or Baa Baa Black Sheep when we try to slip some variety into the lyrics.

He’s cruising all over the place, and can crawl faster than we can walk sometimes. He loves playing with the baking sheets and roasting tins in the kitchen. He waves at everything, all the time. He waved goodbye to some people yesterday, which was a first. He loves standing at the front window to watch the cars and people go by. When we walk down to the water, he’s fascinated by the birds. Wheels are still the coolest things in the world, be they stroller wheels or car wheels or wheels on his toys.

There’s more; there’s always more, but I always forget. I try to keep notes for the next monthly update, and they never seem to accurately reflect everything that’s going on. Words cannot capture the dynamic nature of the daily life of a one year old.