April 2008

Blake is now a yearling. The past 12 months have flown by as fast as any others in my life, which is surprising because I've never spent so much time awake before.

He's pretty much mastered the art of walking, though he doesn't seem to realize it yet. He'll just walk around and pull me behind him holding my finger and refuses to let go. On occasion we've tricked him into walking on his own which he does perfectly until he realizes that we've let go.

I believe this illustrates a fundamental difference between him and his sister. Kyla really had no fear at this age and was willing to risk injury for the thrill of walking, but Blake is more cautious. As a result he may experience less bruising during his toddler years than she did.

More and more Blake seems to be understanding the meaning behind the words he uses. "Mama" is generally uttered when he wants Becky and "Dada" when I'm around, though he isn't entirely consistent. He does seem to understand how to clean his room, putting laundry into his hamper and diapers into the Diaper Champ, however he doesn't care whether these items are dirty or not. Also, if you hold your hand out to him he will give you five.

Kyla reached the all-important milestone of getting her first bicycle. The weather hasn't been consistently nice enough to take it anywhere yet, but we often back the cars out of the garage and let her ride around in there. We have to make sure that we've cleared a path for her because she likes to ride fast.

She's also returned to swim class after a three month hiatus. We actually scheduled her class right after Blake's on Sunday, though this has proven difficult making one kid wait while the other one is in the pool, so I think Becky and I will start taking shifts.

My big news this month is that I spent a couple of weeks on jury duty, which I've written about on my personal blog. This didn't have too big an impact on the family as I was able to get most of my work done during the day (thank goodness for courthouse WiFi), but it did drive Becky a little nuts that my mind was occupied at night with things I wasn't supposed to talk about.

Having made it through a full year as a parent of two young children I can definitely attest to the fact that two is a lot harder than one. It's been a difficult year, but I know that it will get easier soon, because I've watched Kyla become more independent and a much better sleeper than she used to be, and Blake will eventually follow suit. Please knock on some wood for me.

Blake's 1st Birthday Party

Blake's first birthday party was a hit, I believe we had roughly 40 people in attendance. The weather was pretty nice that day with the temperature rising to over 60 degrees.

The theme for the party was sports, so Blake and Kyla wore baseball outfits and we had various ball-shaped balloons. Grandpa Doug brought over his inflatable plastic ball pit and we set it up in the bonus room along with a dozen beach balls for the toddlers to jump around in.

In a departure from how we typically feed guests at big parties we used Qdoba's catering, which was appropriate because Blake is a big fan of rice and guacamole. Becky even made him his own vegan cupcakes (he's allergic to eggs and dairy), though everyone else ate cake from Costco.

Continuing the tradition I started for Kyla, I created a movie that highlighted the last year of Blake's life (which so far is his only year of life). I feel like with this movie I reached a milestone as it was the first one where I lived up to my guarantee to Becky that it would take a lot less time to finish than my previous movies. This was due mainly to some of the time saving features of the latest version of iMovie and being able to upload it directly to AppleTV instead of burning DVDs.

This was the fifth big party that we've thrown at our house and it was probably the easiest to prepare for. I think Becky and I are starting to benefit from some experience, and outsourcing the main entree helped. I'm not sure that Kyla and Blake will always want to have big parties at the house; many kids have their birthday events at a park, Little Gym, or Pump It Up with just their friends. Becky is great about coming up with fun party themes, so maybe we've got a few years left.