Blogaversary

Hard to believe it was already one year ago today that we started this blog. Oh, how young and naïve we were back then, speculating about then-Ziggy's birth date, gender, name, room color... Not to suggest we're any less clueless now, but it's always easy to look back and self-criticize. :)

Time seems to do funny things when you have a baby. For us, the first few months alternated between sleep-deprived blur (I can barely even remember when Zachary was up four or more times a night, though I'm sure Meh's memory is unfortunately a bit clearer), crazy activity (building/assembling/organizing his room), and figuring out what this new little person truly needed and wanted (items not making the list: maya wrap, that snuggle nest thing, pacifiers, and I'm sure a few other items). But since then, the time has flown enormously fast - I can't believe he's already almost 11 months old!

One of Zachary's fun birth gifts was a picture frame with mattes to place photos of him at birth, each month, and then a large picture in the middle for one year. It was bugging me that we'd kind of run out of steam at four months, so yesterday I finally researched, resized, and printed out photos for months five through ten. Looking at these last six months' pictures, Meh and I agreed that we can't actually tell a significant change in his features - nothing like the change in the first month or two certainly. Incidentally, that was one super-cute contact sheet, with adorable pictures varying from smiles to finger in mouth to raspberrying. I was particularly pleased with the sunglasses photo, which happens to be angled so it looks like he's looking at the forthcoming 1-year center photo, Brady Bunch style.

Speaking of time and the circle of life and all that, today was the bris for our friends' newborn son. (Mazel tov to D & D!) Meh made some amazing cupcakes -- vanilla with chocolate frosting. I was going to make my always-demanded challah. However, the best laid plans... Checking the first pair of a double batch in the oven, they simply didn't seem to be cooking. I finally figured out that the oven had died, right in the middle of baking them, and wouldn't heat back up, leaving me with two and a half loaves of raw challah and two par-baked challahs. I put the half-loaf (a mini-loaf, given to D & D to eat upstairs while watching over baby B's recovery) in my toaster oven, and called a few neighbors. Thankfully our next-door neighbors have young children as well and were up early - they invited us to use their oven, Meh shuttled the dough over, and all of the loaves were successfully cooked and delivered to the bris straight from the oven. Well, except the one I gave to our neighbors in emphatic thanks for, um, bringing home the bread. :)

At the bris, we saw a full range of young children from 0 to about 3 years of age. And bizarrely, they were all boys (I think there were about eight in all?). One in particular is just a month or two older than Zachary and was walking/toddling around the family room. I can definitely see how Zachary's movements could turn into that at some point (I won't say "soon" because that would be pressure/setting expectations, and he'll walk/talk/pick a vocation when he's good and ready to), though we're in no rush to have to child proof everything!

Yesterday, Zachary discovered a new game - he was cruising around our ottoman, and grabbed my toe. It tickled, so I chuckled. He thought this was the funniest thing ever, so we had an ongoing game for a good 10 minutes, which went something like this: