Our One Year Old

Remember Me? When I was a baby? I think this might have been the first pic I showed of Tessa here... Is it?

It's over!

I have been waiting a year to officially pass by before I celebrated all the things Tessa did not do to me when she was a baby. I was starting to get worried she would squeeze in a couple of these towards the end. To say Tessa was an "easy" baby is under stated... So a big THANKS to the Tangerine for making my life as a Dad less disgusting and smelly and for keeping my clothes clean from poo, pee, and puke. This girl has never: Thrown-up. Never. Not once. Her drooling phase lasted all of a week. She never shit or pissed on me during a diaper change, she has never blown out her diaper so bad that I had to change her clothes when we were out on an outing together (she did do this to Cole once). She quite literally kept all of her excrement to herself the whole first year, and I couldn't be more pleased about it. I have no idea where she gets the iron stomach from, but she has one. I'm going to suggest it is from all the breast milk and yummy baby food she ate when her stomach was figuring out how to be a stomach. Who knows, but I do feel lucky.

Hey! Look at me, I'm totally a one year old now.




"We just spoiled our daughter" is the text message I sent to Cole from the cab I was in, this was after I had just spent an hour in Tribeca at these two great kid boutiques called Shoofly and Torly Kids. Since I was going to be in NYC anyway, Cole thought it would be sweet to get Tessa her first pair of walking shoes from the big city, why not? Since I was there doing an event for Pureology, I asked my fashionable boss where she shops for her children, got some directions, and snuck away for an hour-- and literally went nuts. "What about that dress up there?" and "I better get her another pair in a bigger size for when she grows out of these." Things piled up, and next thing you know, Tessa had her first ever NYC shopping spree. We have yet to find any stores in Florida that aren't walls of pink and frill, and poorly made Disney character costumes, bleck! Don't get me wrong, we aren't looking for high fashion on a baby, we just don't like the "girl uniforms."

I flew back home late afternoon on Tessa's birthday on a solid two hours sleep from the night before (up all night editing, not partying)-- I sat next to an awful man that must have had bowling ball sized testicles because he sat with his legs blasted apart and practically on top of me, and his arms were covered in coarse long pointy black hair, it felt like someone was scrubbing my arms with a wire brush every time he would readjust and secure his elbow into my side. I just kept thinking: "make it home" and muttering my centering mantras of K.I.T. and D.G.C. (keep it together, and don't get crazy). As far as a birthday bash, we had decided not to do any kind of official birthday thing with me out of town the whole week before. Instead, we did a little photo shoot of her wearing her new digs when I got home, and we let her show off her new walking thing she does, we went to Publix and bought dinner and cake, came home, played, ate, got covered in icing, washed off the sugar in baths, and then played really hard with the children until they were sore from laughing. LB had just as much fun as Tessa, and was a big help in the candle blowing and cake eating portion of the birthday celebration.


These are the shoes I picked out for her at Shoofly, they are made by Garvalin

It's so good to be home and I can't wait to show you a sneak of some of the stuff I have been doing in NYC. I also wanted to say I am overwhelmed by the comments that have been coming in, and am just so taken aback by such sweet support and encouragement as all of this keeps growing. I apologize if you asked a ? in the comments and I did not respond, I have just not had the time and promise I am not blowing you off or ignoring you. I am just trying to get caught up, but THANK YOU, for the love in the comment section.

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

Tweet