A year in the life

A happy 1-year-old

Today Deven had his 1-year check up (a bit late as his birthday was actually last week)...amazing to believe that last Valentine's Day we were the blurry-eyed parents of a 6-day-old.  Which made a pretty good excuse for why we did not celebrate the occasion.  I'm not sure what our excuse is this year (since we didn't manage to celebrate again), but I digress.

In any event, Deven checked out as perfectly healthy.  His stats were that he was 46.8 cm head circumference (62nd percentile), 30.25 inches for height (64th percentile), and 20 lbs 1.75 ounces for weight (12th percentile!).  So, he remains a sort of average sized, wiry guy.  May he maintain this metabolism later when it is more useful.  :-)  He was a very active participant during his check up, including attempting to help the doctor type up her comments on the keyboard, actively "assisting" by grabbing any instrument he came near, and finally providing very vocal feedback when he received multiple shots.

While his life is not as reliably documented as his sister's (yes, yes...the irony since I am a second child complainer on that topic myself), I wanted to take a moment and note for posterity what he is like as he hits the 1 year mark.

• First and foremost, Deven never stops moving.  If he sees you, he will walk over and put up his arms so you pick him up.  Once you pick him up, he will lunge and wiggle until you put him back down.  Then he will repeat this whole process again.  I cannot think of a single instance where he sat in my lap and was just content to hang out. The only exceptions to this rule are a) if you are holding a magic electronic device that he would like to try to eat (remote control, iPhone, iPad, etc.), and b) he is exhausted and you are giving him a bottle.  The only good thing about him waking up in the middle of the night is that it is a rare opportunity when he would like to be held, which almost makes seeing him at 3am acceptable.  Which brings me to my next point...
• Deven is a terrible sleeper.  Despite being 1 year old, he continues to reliably wake up between 3-4am each night. It is so bad that Sameer at times has called into question whether or not Deven is actually his son (Sameer being notoriously borderline narcoleptic). Sameer is also accepting applications for the position of night nurse in our household. I would like to extend a belated apology to my friends who have had troublesome sleeping habits with their children for our previous smugness on this topic. I get it now. You are not soft. You have tried everything. You are aware that there is an approach called "crying it out." Nothing you do matters.  No matter how stubborn you are, the child is more stubborn.  Deven's latest tactic in our ongoing battle of wills on this topic is to poop in the middle of the night (sorry for the TMI here) which you basically cannot ignore (both because he continues to wail, waking up his sister, and because it is disgusting).  Thus, his latest nickname is "midnight pooper" as in the following lyric (sung at 3am to the tune of "The Joker" by Steve Miller Band, and yes I am aware it is not an age appropriate song):

I am super

You're in a stupor

'cause I'm a midnight pooper

I sure think this is lots of fun

• I'm sure we'll be receiving notice from the Grammy's any day now for consideration of this artistic masterpiece.  All I can say is that our bar for humor is very low these days because we are sleep deprived.
• Speaking of nicknames, one of the longstanding honors of being a second child is to be the recipient of countless nicknames from your older sibling.  As has been noted in the past, Sonia is partial to repetition, so Deven is generally referred to as one of the following:  "Gaga" (my personal favorite, as in "Baby Gaga"), "Gogo", "Coco" (Sonia's current favorite), or "Bobo".  I believe the original origin of these names were sounds that Deven was making, which is a bit odd because I don't think I've ever heard him utter any of those syllables.
• On that point, Deven remains in no hurry to talk.  We sometimes pretend that he has just said "hi", or that when he says "da da" he is referring to Sameer, but I think we are mostly kidding ourselves.  He has long since learned that he best communicates his points by crying, whining, and grabbing you and not letting go, so thinks this whole "words" thing is something he can ignore.  But, he is slowly but surely picking up new consonants, so I'm confident that eventually he will acquiesce and agree to string these together into words, but no time soon.
• Deven is a remarkably good walker for his age.  He has been walking with confidence for a month already, and as of this past weekend is now the owner of a "real" pair of tennis shoes. He is still working through how to keep his balance while wearing them, but I suspect he'll have it down in no time, and then will probably use his newfound traction to pick up speed. And while I have no intention of breaking down and buying one of those child leashes, I am admittedly no longer judgmental on the topic.  :-)  
• Deven is also a pretty good eater, at least as compared to his sister at this age.  He is most interested in eating what you are having, least interested in eating anything on a spoon, and is able to easily sort his foods into likes (into the mouth) and dislikes (onto the floor, typically with a flourishing hand wave).  If I never step on another Cheerio again (or worse, green pea), it will be too soon. 
• Despite being a good eater, Deven is a terrible restaurant visitor. Every month or so we try and take him again, and each time the meal ends with one of us in the car with him, waiting while the other person and Sonia get our food wrapped to-go.  As noted above, Deven is constantly on the move, so sitting in a high chair for any length of time is just unimaginable to him.  Darting through the bar area of a restaurant while you chase him is, however, a good time.  All I can say is that while the other patrons laugh, the waiters frown, and we exit sooner than later. 

For all of my tongue-in-cheek negativity and sarcasm above, no post about Deven should go without mentioning that he is a really happy, good natured baby (toddler!). Almost always smiling, quick to laugh at his sister's antics, able to make his eyes look particularly large and Bambi-like just when you are thinking of throttling him...in short, a cutey patootie if ever there was one.  It seems like both yesterday and a lifetime ago that his smiling face came into our lives...can't imagine what it would be like without him.

Happy birthday Deven!