One

Luke's first birthday was yesterday! This time last year we were still at St. Joe's hospital with a tiny, sleepy, sweet little boy who we had no idea how to care for. We weren't even sure he'd be staying with us. Opening his eyes for a few minutes was the peak of excitement. (And of course it was immensely exciting for us every time he did it!)

A year later he

• crawls all over the house, pulls himself up to the closet drawer to gleefully throw each pair of pants on the floor, one by one;
  
• shrieks with delight and yells "ba! ba! ba!" when he sees a bunch of balloons in the store;
  
• yells at the top of his lungs when we don't spoon more cheese grits into his plate fast enough for him (hey, kid, they're cooling!) and generally eats everything in sight
• stumbles forward a few steps on his Fisher Price walker, or rolls around the house on his new fire truck
  
• bangs happily on the piano and plays rhythm sticks and tambourine;
• kicks his feet excitedly when he sees we're strolling towards the park (and sometimes yells demandingly when he sees that we're biking past it without stopping!)
  
• eagerly reaches for his favorite books and turns the pages briskly to get to the good parts (current favorites include the old favorites "I Like it When", "First Book of Sushi", "Machines at Work", and "Spring is Here", and more recent additions to the greatest-hits list such as "Llama Llama Red Pajama", and "Shades of Black")
• giggles furiously when his squeaky octopus sneaks up on him in the bathtub and squirts him
  
• and, every once in a while, looks one of us straight in the eyes, smiles, and says "mama" or "dada" (sometimes, but not always, to the correct parent...)

So, we aren't sure how it happened, but our fragile little 6-pound baby has quadrupled in size and blossomed into the most enthusiastically curious, social, smiley, and occasionally exasperating one year old we ever imagined he could be.

We love you, Lucas!

p.s. For pictures of Luke's first birthday party, see his flickr page. Every single one of his cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandmas made it (including a couple of honorary aunts and uncles). Thanks SO MUCH to everybody who traveled from as far away as California to celebrate Luke's first birthday with him.

p.p.s. We are, as usual, severly tardy on posting here, and soon there may or may not be a couple of out-of-chronological order posts about his latest doctor's visit, his trip to Boston to meet his friend Tai, and/or his exciting vacation to the Florida Keys