Our baby boy turns 1 year old today.

And although I know every second of how we got here – I was there after all – but damned if it doesn’t seem like far less time. A year?

Didn’t we just bring this little guy home a couple months ago? I remember it well. Going to the hospital. Sleeping on the couch. Katie’s water breaking. Later on the nurse who went quiet and brought another nurse in who was also quiet, until they started whispering. Being told the baby wasn’t happy. The decision to move ahead with a C-section. Putting on the monkey suit and hair net, the fears that had been eating me for weeks that I never spoke aloud, that I was going to lose my wife, my son, or both, threatening to surface. But I pushed that shit down and hoped for the best.

And inside the room when the anesthesiologist counted down from three and the doctor said “Begin,” my fears evaporated. These people worked with – ahem – surgical precision and I was able to concentrate on my wife.

And then there was a baby. And someone called me “Dad” for the first time ever because I had a child, a perfect little son. And I heard him cry and I cut the cord and I showed him to his mother for the first time and my world was irrevocably changed.

Then we brought him home and started to learn how to become parents. And I think we’re doing alright. We made it through the hard days of every 2 hour feedings and diapers and the lack of sleep. We made it through his first battle with congestion, the weeks of colic, his first ear infection, and the first time he puked all over Katie/Me/Both of us. And I never once punched 1) the people who thought I ABSOLUTELY NEEDED TO HEAR AND BLINDLY FOLLOW their advice on how they raised their children, 2) the people who assumed that simply because I was male that I would toss my child aside to family when Katie had to go to Texas for work, and 3) the majority of the driving population in Des Moines that really fucking deserve it.

We made it through being away from our boy over night, both individually and as a couple. (Pro Tip: If you have a newborn and your wife has to leave town for 4 days because of work, I highly suggest you do not get sick right before she leaves.)

There is a scene in the Rocky Balboa movie where Rocky tells his son, and I’m paraphrasing here, that watching him grow up everyday was great, a privilege. To me, that is one of the truest lines of dialogue ever written. I, and I know Katie too, are eternally grateful we get to watch our little boy grow.

At one year old Logan is healthy and extremely mobile. While blazingly fast when crawling, he’s also starting to walk, putting together 3-5 steps at a time. And he is sneaky in many ways. The other day I had my iPhone sitting on the arm of the love seat. Logan has a toy phone about the same size. He came up and when I turned away for a moment to grab another toy, he took my phone off the couch and left his in its place. I thought I’d bust a gut laughing.

Somedays Logan is loud and happy and other days he is quiet and happy. Mainly, he’s just happy. And so are we.

Happy 1st Birthday, buddy.