Ewan is 1!

My dear sweet Ewan,

You are one years old. Mama can't believe an entire year has gone by already.

You have the most infectious laugh, and I love to blow raspberries on your belly or tickle your knees to hear it.

You love to wrestle with Mama and Daddy. You squeal and climb all over us, especially our heads. You'd love to wrestle Eli also but we worry about you getting hurt.

You are a swift crawler and you've mastered going up stairs. You are just starting to go down the stairs safely, i.e. NOT face first! Even though your knees are SO sore that you crawl with knees off the ground in this awkward way, you aren't trying very hard to walk. You will walk if Mama is holding both of your hands, but you don't much like it. If you are distracted by toys in both hands, you will stand unassisted for a few seconds -- once you realize what is going on, you quickly sit down.

You've got two teeth on the bottom and four teeth on the top. Your top teeth are still pushing through and you've got big spaces between them. Your smile is as cute as ever -- a big wide grin that even makes most strangers remark "what a happy baby!"

In some ways, you are even more strong-willed than Eli. You get very frustrated when Mama feeds you; you want to do it yourself! You get very frustrated when you are taken out of a room that is unsafe, namely the bathroom. You get very frustrated when you can't go outside and play in the mud with Eli (you tend to eat the mud!) You scream and cry very hard, and Mama believes it is a sneak peak into what your tantrums will be like...

You are super happy to be playing with Daddy, but you still feel most comfortable with Mama. If you are in a room playing with Daddy and Mama comes in, you will cry until Mama picks you up. If Mama leaves without you, you cry very hard!

You don't like to be in your highchair eating very much, but you LOVE to drink from a cup. We still hold it for you as you tend to spill all over yourself but you don't even mind us doing that. If you are very hungry, you will still wave your arms while eating.

You are talking a lot more now, babbling away and looking at people intently when you talk. You are especially conversational in the morning, unfortunately Mama is usually very tired. You sleep much better than you did at 8 months, but you sometimes wake up hungry in the middle of the night. You are still an early riser, sometimes waking at 5:30 a.m. -- but if Mama is lucky she can get you to go back to sleep until 8 a.m.

You are quite independent, wandering off to play with toys by yourself in the playroom if Mama is doing something boring like making dinner. You like to play with anything Eli is playing with at the moment so playing with your brother alone doesn't work too well.

But Mama and Daddy can tell how much you love Eli and how much Eli loves you. One time when you were crawling on Eli to wrestle him, Eli said: "Baby can pull my hair or poke my eyes. It's OK Mama. I just love him!"