Mommy owes you an apology. Ok, so several apologies.
I'm sorry I haven't taken enough pictures of you in this first year of your life. Well, enough probably isn't the right word. Our computer is full of pictures of you in all your handsome glory. But I certainly haven't taken as many pictures of you as I did your sister. Her first year of life was very well-documented. You see, you had the unfortunate luck of being born 2nd. So all of those times that you were being cute and I probably should have grabbed the camera? Yeah, I was likely dealing with your sister or catching up on a thousand things I just didn't have time to do because, well, I had two kids to take care of.
On a similar note, I'm sorry I haven't done enough blogging about your first year. (Pipe down with all your "Well ain't that the truth!", blog readers.) While I'm fairly certain I hit all the big milestones, it's the little things that I didn't always have a chance to document. The world didn't know the exact moment you got your 8th tooth (to be honest, I don't even know...it was sometime this month.) And I didn't write about your sleeping or eating habits every time they changed. Some months, the only real Joe info came in the form of your monthly letter (at least I kept up with those...gimme some credit there?) I did take tons of videos of you this year, so hopefully between those and the blog we'll have enough memories to share when you get older.
I'm sorry you aren't allowed to play in the toilet as often as you'd like. Or throw things into it so that Mommy has to go fishing. Actually, I'm not sorry. It's gross.
I'm sorry you don't get to play with your Daddy all day every day like you want to. If you had your way, you would just spend your days playing ball and saying "Dada" and building intricate Lego towers with him. I wish we could win the lottery or come up with some brilliant money-making scheme that would financially provide enough that Daddy wouldn't have to work & could just play at home with us all day. (Although I'm fairly certain we would break him if that happened. He gets antsy by day 3 of a 3-day weekend.)
I'm sorry that you usually have to eat your sister's scraps. You frequently get the fruit she didn't want or the 1/2 of the cold grilled cheese she couldn't finish. I promise you won't be stuck with her leftovers forever.
I'm sorry that I won't let you have juice. Quite frankly, there is such little nutritional value in juice and oh-so-much sugar that I'm hoping to keep you away from it for a long time. Once your sister learned the word juice, it was all she ever asked for (and threw monumental tantrums if she didn't get it.) We're trying to avoid that with you; kinda like "he won't know what he's missing". Eventually we will let you have small traces of it; your sister maxes out at 4 oz. a day. But at 1-year-old, you will have had juice twice ever (you were 4 months old and we were trying to get you to poop with prune juice.)
I'm sorry I talk about your
I'm sorry that one of my nicknames for you is "Giant Baby". While your size doesn't quite break records (your sister still holds all of those titles), you are a bit of a bruiser. And, well, it just rolls off the tongue for me. I'll work on some new ones, bud.
I'm sorry that you will never know what it's like to have a pet. I can (and likely will) pretend that the reason is your dad's allergies. And there's a good chance you and Brooke will be allergic, too. But we all really know the reason is that I just don't like them. Animals gross me out. I don't like touching them, smelling them, the way they just sneak around a corner out of nowhere & scare the crap out of you. I just don't like 'em. The best chance you ever have of having a pet is a fish, and even those are a bit more work/smell than I think I can handle. I will, however, try to expose you to animals whenever possible so you aren't afraid of them like I was. We take an annual trip to the zoo (c'mon, for an animal-hater, hitting up the zoo once a year is impressive.) If we had friends/neighbors with pets, I'd let you get near them (but we don't...) You walked right up to a puppy a couple weeks ago at softball and wanted to pet it. As much as it pained me, I helped you pet its back, and you really did love it. You wanted to chase after the puppy the rest of the night. Full-time pets? Sorry, kiddo, that's just one sacrifice I'm not willing to make for you.
I'm sorry that your sister isn't always very nice. She's still learning how to share and take turns. And she can't grasp the concept that you are too little to be able to do those things; if she has to share, she thinks you should, too. She often takes things from you and yells for you to get away from her stuff. We're working on this with her, but it's a slooooow process. I can't always be there to referee for you, so you're going to have to learn to defend yourself soon, okay kiddo?
I'm sorry that I made you look like a dork at the pool yesterday. The hat was too small, the trunks too big. To add insult to injury, I put water shoes on you so your tootsies wouldn't fry on the hot concrete. Adorable, sure, but also very dorky.
Think you could forgive your dear old Mom for these things, buddy? I do have your best interests at heart, even when it feels like I'm just shining up my Fun Police badge.
Love,
Your Remorseful Mama
p.s. Dorky outfit or not, you were the cutest little man at the pool yesterday.
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