what we have learned from a one year old

(These are pictures from the day of his birthday....it is slightly ghetto, I couldn't get eggs from the grocery store to bake a cake in time and we didn't spend the money to buy a real candle, hence the match....we are planning to celebrate a bit better this weekend for both Thomas and Krew after Thomas is done with midterms)

October 3rd started off bright (literally bright, shades are not made well enough to keep the Grenadian sun from blaring into your room) and early (this is one of the reasons we keep Krew around, he has a nack for waking up no later than 6:30 in the morning, so we never have to hassle with an alarm clock ever again). Once we heard his cheerful jibber jabber and obsessant scratching against the pack-and-play, we burst into a horrible early morning rendition of happy birthday. Krew was wearing a huge smile, welcoming the surprised (tone-deaf) singing. While he kindly stared at us, waiting for us to finish singing, I thought to myself, "Is is possible for someone to look so much older after just one day?" You know how your grandparents always ask you if you feel any older on your birthday and you sheepishly answer back with , "well, yeah I guess so," but today wasn't like that. I knew if Krew was able to communicate, he would definitely say that he felt older; that he finally felt like he was one. Today he had the wisdom of a one year old in his eyes. That may sound stupid, I mean how much wisdom can a one year old really have, right??? Well, who knows...all I know is that this one year old has taught us a lot. Krew has taught us that:

making excuses is for the less creative--Krew prefers to cram at least 10 toys at a time into his left hand because he never knows what toy he might need while his right hand is doing all the exploring; he never seems to be bothered by the fact that he only has two hands...me on the other hand (no pun intended), I complain about not having enough hands to carry in the groceries, but now I am going to have to get creative with my loading methods, thanks to Krew.

genetics are a tricky thing--Even though Krew does look A LOT like me as a baby, you still never know....I mean, two brown haired parents can still produce a little red head boy...who saw that coming???? I'm not complaining though, it is such beautiful hair....people pay money for that kind of hair. And if its even possible, I think his hair has actually gotten more red since we have been in Grenada...and with sweaty curls, it makes for the perfect combination.

sharing is the cool thing to do--Krew will rearrange a neat row of shoes, just to hand you one, or two or three...he is usually willing to share all that the neat row has to offer. He even takes the time to dig through his blue bucket of toys to pick out the perfect toy to share, which is usually the dinosaur or the baseball. Krew is even willing to share in public places (which makes it real, right? I am just not making this up), like church, where he continually offers his prized possessions (his books) to the children sitting next to us. When it comes to sharing with Krew, there is no indian giving allowed, when you share, you put your whole heart into it. Need I say more, this behavior can be a little intimating, especially from a one year old, now I find myself making goals that involve sharing rather than going to the gym.

baths, books and bananas make for a great day--I think we all enjoy life's simple pleasures at times...a steamy hot shower, a bowl (or three...ahhhem) of your favorite ice cream; its all very normal, but this boy lives for these so called simple pleasures. He screeches a high pitched "ba, ba, ba" as soon as he hears the bath water start and at times he has been known to try and climb over the shower step....anything to get into the bath faster. I am beginning to wonder if he gets dirty and messy on purpose just to squeeze in an extra bath. As for books...man does Krew love his books. If all you did was read him books for a day, that would be the happiest day of his short little life. I almost feel bad for the toys that he has, they're clearly not treated equally. Bananas are Krew's new found love. Back home bananas were a little ho-hum, but bananas in Grenada are the real deal....super sweet and delicious; Krew can't resist and I for one can't blame him.

you can never wave too much or too fast for that matter--Once Krew got down the whole waving thing, I was excited for the occasional bye-bye waves, but "occasional" doesn't seem to exist in his world. He waves at everything and everyone and at hummingbird speed (I don't know how it is physically possible for a wrist to move so fast). It is no wonder that we both come back from a walk pooped...I am doing all the walking and Krew is doing all the waving.....he never misses a car, a person, a dog, a telephone wire, and lets be honest, a blade of grass; everything gets a proper wave on our walks.

playing a jam always makes you feel better--We all know that playing a good song does brighten your mood, but since having Krew, it is almost more enjoyable to watch Krew jam to a jam. This little boy loves music; he will stop whatever he is doing just to put a smile on his face, rock back and forth (keeping with the beat of course) and every once and awhile throw a fist pump or two. He just recently started stomping his feet (especially when Paul Simons', "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" is playing, funny, huh??).

a learning curve can never be too steep--We use to joke that Krew was a bit of slow learner (Kind of a mean joke I guess, but joking about it made us feel better about the fact that he didn't start crawling until about 10 months)...little did we know, that he just wanted to impress us with his super steep learning curve and learn everything all at once. He learned to walk (and now practically run), say dog, woof like a dog, hold up one finger when you ask him how old he is, play vroom vroom with cars, decently throw a baseball, knows the difference between a plane and a car....the list goes on. I guess he shut us up pretty quick because now our jaws are dropped with amazement.

its pointless to learn how to say "cat" or "meow", because dogs are so much better anyway (Thomas would agree 100%)-- Everything is a high pitched "dawwww" (dog) these days and no matter how many times you say a cat says "meow" at the end of the day it always says "ooooof, ooooooof." So right now I am having a moral dilemma....since he has the dog thing down, do I teach him all about cats now....but what if he replaces his love of dogs for a love of cats....I don't know if Thomas can handle that. Oh, well, we will have to see, the learning must go on.

if you've got it flaunt it--And I don't know exactly what IT is, but Krew definitely has a lot of IT. Every where we go...especially here in Grenada people stop what they are doing and go gaga over Krew. Children, the ladies, grown men even, all they want to do is get a smile out of him and chat for a bit. It is incredible how much attention he gets...and I would say that he doesn't even know it, but I think he does. He waits for the perfect moment to flash a smirk or wave hi....he might be a little bit of a charmer like his dad....which will make for one happy wife one day.

walking should be a pass time and not an everyday necessity--So like I mentioned before, Krew has been walking for a little over two weeks now. Once he took his first steps, he was off with only two speeds, fast and faster, but now that the novelty of walking has died down, he would just rather....not. Getting him to walk on his own now is a bit of a chore; he prefers crawling or stringing you along by the finger....it is only when no one is paying attention will he venture off by himself. Oh, well at least we know he can walk, it will become exciting again one day, maybe when he figures out that the next step is running.

There are so many things that Krew has taught us. We become better parents, better spouses and better people each day because of what we learn. We are so blessed to have such a sweet, smart, and funny little boy in our lives. We in no way deserve him, but we love him more than we ever thought was possible, so thats got to count for something, right?