The best thing that happened to me this weekend was that my sweet Little One turned ONE! Happy Birthday Pierson!

Pierson,
You’ve turned my world upside down.
Your exploding smile melts this momma’s hearts.
Your love ‘pats’ soften my weary days.
Your energy keeps life exciting.
Your laughter is vibrant and inspiring.
I love you, sweet Little One!
You’ve made my life full.
I’m so thankful that God has blessed me with YOU!
Momma

My mom gave Pierson and Roman their own little baby dolls. Michael is more a fan of the Tonka Trucks and Thomas the Trains, but he allowed little Pierson to receive it from his BB. So far, Pierson loves biting the hand off the baby and giving it love taps hits. We also role-play by putting the baby ‘night-night‘. The doll goes down beautifully without so much as a whimper! I’m hoping Pierson will catch on and do the same.

All right, Kid.  The party’s over.

Ten months into this thing called parenting, I’ve come to the conclusion that toys aren’t needed:

I scatter the toys over the living room floor and shake the rattle incessantly.  He crawls for the remote.  I replace the remote with plastic keys, shaking to entice.  He sees my necklace and reaches his chubby fingers to make it his.  I remove my necklace.  I reach for the nearest stuffed animal to distract him.  He claps.  But could not care less about the plush pig I offer.

He crawls away.  Just when I think he’s headed for a toy, he makes the dog’s bed his recliner.  I let him revel in the moment of victory, then go replace the dog bed with a jack-in-the box.  I crank the toy.  Little one is remotely interested until he spies the dog whom he forgot about chasing.  Jack is ignored.

Into the kitchen he crawls with aspirations of pulling the canine’s tail.  He spies the plant and diverts course.  Dirt, his favorite!  I intercept & avert.  I scrounge for something tempting in the kitchen’s drawers & dangle the found spatula in his face.  At least, THIS is more interesting than a toy. But only until he remembers about the dog’s tail.  Off he goes.

He spies the belt stool that looks interesting.  He stops to investigate.

I move him back to the center of the living room floor and shake the rattle incessantly.  He crawls for the remote…(Please go back to the beginning of this story to continue reading my daily, sometimes ‘by the minute’ cycle..then repeat.)