The problem is that it only holds 20-25 books. That’s less than half of our current collection. So I started looking for more bookshelves, but the problem is that I’m out of furniture real estate in my house.

Then I happened across this post about how a lady made bookshelves using Ikea spice racks. What a great idea! And I had the perfect wall for such an occasion: the half-wall on the other side of my staircase. No furniture will ever be put there because it’s a hall and because these shelves are only four inches deep, they don’t protrude into the hall any further than the doorframe at the end.

Now, true, each shelf doesn’t have a very large capacity. I arranged these so you could see as much of the covers as possible. But they definitely beckon a toddler’s attention better than when they were lined up on a shelf that only I could reach.

I did paint them white because the natural birch wouldn’t have looked as good against my yellow wall as they did against Domestic Simplicity’s lovely blue one. Overall this was a very cheap and easy project and I’m thrilled with how it turned out.

You babble all the time, you feed yourself Cheerios and drink water out of a sippy with a fair amount of precision, and you play by yourself for longer stretches of time. But you are all about the gross motor skills right now. You are a very quick crawler and you can walk well just holding on to someone else by one hand. You can stand unassisted longer than you think, too. You enjoy dancing to pretty much any music. You aren’t big on waving bye-bye yet but you love to give (very gentle) highlow-fives. You answer questions in the affirmative: you say “Yeah” or “okay” in response–usually to great laughter.

Since you’ve been so healthy, I don’t worry so much about you being around lots of other people this winter. We had about 20 at your Papa & Gigi’s house on Halloween and 15 at Thanksgiving. You were the star of the show both times. Your oldest cousin in particular enjoys playing with you, and your boy-cousin is, I think, glad to have another boy around. He especially will be when you two can play and get into trouble together!

We took our first out-of-town trip recently. We went to Birmingham to visit Mommy’s cousin and had a wonderful time. We went to the zoo, where you slept some of the time, but you seemed interested in looking at the animals (and the other people). You behaved very well on the backward carousel and on the train. You charmed the strangers around you, as usual. Hopefully we’ll get to see your second cousins regularly now that they’re all only a few hours away–you met the other one a year ago.

You’re getting taller, so you wear more 12-18 month clothing these days. It’s all still too big in the waist but at least the pants are long enough at that size. We’ll get the official stats this week but you’ve grown at least two inches since your last checkup.

You’re my beautiful big boy!

2. The sling is a better option than the stroller at the zoo–otherwise you’re constantly strapping in and unstrapping because he can’t see the animals when he’s sitting down so low. He’s also better able to nap in a sling… until rowdy older children inevitably wake him up.

3. It’s really, really nice to talk at length with someone whose son was born almost as prematurely.

4. You can get Titans radio there!

5. Try to figure out a way to work a wine distributor into your family. You’ll thank me later.

Motherhood is not a contest. Parenthood is not a contest (though men would probably just as soon stay out of this argument). You do what you feel is best and right for your situation. No one else has your exact situation and frankly no one else needs to have a say in the matter.

MYOB.

Speaking only for myself, I also returned to work quickly–two-and-a-half weeks postpartum. I worked 6-hour days with my doctor’s consent, with the warning that I would be really tired. I did this to conserve my actual maternity leave for when my son got out of NICU. And that was too soon to have tried to come back to work; my body wasn’t ready and I now know I pushed myself too hard.

But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. My OB, family, boss, clients, and friends all fully understood that. I hope MM feels the same support from people who matter.

I’m proud of being able to nurse my son. Not proud in an “I’m a better mother” sort of way–not at all. It has very little to do with me; any number of things could’ve prevented successful breastfeeding. He came so early that I was probably (quietly) expected to have low supply, he wasn’t chronologically supposed to be able to latch, breathe, and swallow at the same time yet, he still got bottles for the first week at home because they would only let me nurse twice a day at first and that could’ve confused him, or other issues related to the c-section could’ve gotten in the way. But none of them did, and I’m grateful to be able to have such a positive experience with it. I wish it were like this for everyone. It’s been one of my favorite parts of motherhood.

I know I’ve been talking a lot lately about the NICU and what we were doing a year ago. While I sit in the glider in his room, I frequently remember how I would sit next to his incubator in that small leather hospital glider and think about someday being able to sit and rock him for however long I wanted. I do not take it for granted. I think that’s one reason I go against the conventional wisdom about rocking a baby to sleep. When we’re cuddled up in that glider in his darkened room, me patting his bottom and him patting my chest, that’s the image I had in my head a year ago.

After that, having just been discharged from the hospital, they loaded me (and a huge cart-full of stuff) into my dad’s car and we drove 30 miles away. Leaving downtown that evening was not the most fun moment(s) of my brief parenting career.

Your early intervention teacher thinks you will walk in the next 30 days. Even though you motor around perfectly well on all fours, you regularly pull up and want to take off on your feet. You like having the ability to do laps back and forth–you don’t want to be confined anywhere for too long. You also don’t want to be held for long either. You want to be down on the floor to explore your surroundings.

Your favorite toys include wooden shapes that fit into a puzzle, your light-up remote control (still), and your Leap Frog music table. You’re quite good about entertaining yourself for a while with each of those–again, assuming that you have the ability to crawl back and forth between the living room and dining room whenever you want.

You are now able to drink water out of a plastic water bottle. You looove water. We’re still working toward a sippy cup so we can get away from your baby bottles soon, but you seem to prefer being able to A) hold the bottle yourself and B) drink some and dump some down your chest. You occasionally get a little bit of watered-down juice at Mrs. D’s house but not at home yet. Mommy isn’t happy about the amount of sugar in nearly all juices and doesn’t think it adds any nutritional value anyway.

Your appetite is huge and you’re eating a wide variety of healthy stuff. You chew now–whether you need to or not (though you still have no teeth)–so you get food that’s less pureed and has more texture. You really like orzo, for example. We’ve been lucky to be able to use fresh ingredients out of your aunt and uncle’s garden, like squash, zucchini, tomatoes, basil, sage, and rosemary.

Don’t worry–okra is soon!

My new favorite thing is to try to make you laugh. No, not the short little laugh that you’ve been doing since about 6 months. The belly laugh. It makes other people laugh until they cry. Previously only a few of us had seen it on a semi-regular basis, but when we met with the early intervention people, that’s all you did for the first 15-20 minutes. They declared that they’d never seen anyone as young as you laugh that hard–they were worried you were going to hurt yourself!

You sleep for eleven hours at night, like clockwork. When you first wake up, you sing and talk to yourself for a few minutes, then locate your pacifier and start your seahorse that plays a bunch of different pieces of classical music. After that, you crawl over to the end of your crib, pull yourself up, and start banging on your changing table. This cycle may repeat itself unless I come in to get you. We change your diaper and then settle in the glider together to nurse for a while. Sometimes you only want to for ten minutes and other times you’re content to stay there for half an hour. But inevitably you’ll get more interested in what the puppy is up to or looking at the light fixture, or you just want down.

People who meet you no longer assume you were born early. You’re long and lean, as we all expected, but you don’t appear undersized. I won’t get your official stats until next week, but I think you’re 28.5″ tall and 20 lbs. You’re heavy enough that if I don’t have you positioned juuuust right in your sling or wrap, it hurts my back in less time than it used to. I still prefer to wear you as much as possible when we go out, as opposed to putting you in a stroller or a shopping cart. The easier to steal kisses, my dear!

Though you haven’t said words, you like to make noises. “Dadadada” and “babababa” are the usual go-to vocalizations. You also click your tongue, roll your tongue (you’ve done that when fussy for almost your whole life), and blow through your lips or just smack them. You sometimes make the Baby Sign for “cereal” while eating and “milk” while nursing, so I know you’re putting things together.

I love watching you observe the world. You’re learning things all the time and it’s fun to see you figuring out how things work, whether they make noise, what they taste like, and what happens when you drop them.

I love you so much. I’m so proud of you. I’ve loved this first year and am excited about all the years to come. Happy birthday, baby.