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My baby turns 1 tomorrow 🥺

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A song I’d love to blast in the carpool line, as someone who hates what my own religion has become.

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Ugh.

So let me preface this by saying that my family is safe and healthy and intact.

But there’s something very big and very hard and very unique brewing that I can’t talk about (and maybe never can/will) that I could use the collective Internet’s thoughts and prayers and whatnot while I figure out how to handle.

Vague, I know. And I might not ever make another post about it after this until/unless I have to.

But Tumblr has been my safe space for this stuff before (shit gets too real when I tell people IRL and I’m not there yet), so here we are again.

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Leo’s Special Ed teacher called because they need to change some truly bureaucratic scheduling details in his IEP, but since IEPs are legal docs, moving 30 minutes from one subject to another requires a phone call at minimum and a whole meeting if the parent wants (which I do not 😂).

But!

He said that Leo’s doing great and that his para from last year has said she’s noticed a huge difference, which is why I loveee that they moved her up with the class.

I feel like I’ve waited so long for this 😩

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I thought the number of adults my kid saw on a regular basis last year was a lot, this year it’s even more!

Last year, he had a teacher, a para, a Special Ed teacher, speech, and OT.

This year, its teacher, para, one Special Ed teacher, a different Special Ed teacher, speech, OT, and gifted.

The Special Ed teacher thing was definitely caused by other kids’ IEPs because he actually has less services than he did last year, and then he got into the baby version of the gifted program at the end of last year (which is like an hour a week instead of a full day). It just feels a little nuts when the school is so small that there’s only 2 first grade classes.

His IEP meeting is going to be a circus 😬

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If it tells you anything about where I live, there are no clubs at Leo’s school except FCA (basically church at school) and Boy Scouts.

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The last of the formula 🥺

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School starts next week and I’m so torn between being sad because I’ll miss my baby (the big one) and being so excited to have our routine back. He does so well at school too, and he’ll have most of the same friends + the same para this year so I know he’ll be happy once everything settles.

But what do you mean I can’t smush his face and tell him I love him at any random moment 🥺

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I had two of those house appointments with arrival windows this week. Which was quite a choice on my part, but whatever.

Except it’s been a freaking pain.

#1: Monday, pest control. Arrival window is literally all day (8-5). Showed up at 4:30, which is technically fine, but they texted Josh and not me when I verified TWICE and we had to leave for an hour after because of the baby. So dinner and bedtime was a hot mess.

#2: Today, the power company. Arrival window 8-12. Just pulled in at ONE THIRTY. But after we do this, we get up to like $5k in completely free energy efficiency upgrades, based on whatever this assessment shows.

But good Lord, I hate being stuck at home at the mercy of some corp’s schedule 🫠

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Y’all 😂😂

He kept saying it over and over and the hardest part was actually getting a recording, because he’d stop talking and start looking at himself when he saw my phone.

He still hasn’t said mama 😅🙃

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My MIL left on Friday (and we miss her already), but now I’m in the mood to rearrange my whole house and change my whole life. So. There’s that, I guess 😂

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Living in GA is cool sometimes.

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Leo in a Texas Roadhouse bathroom last night: Mama, how do you pee with no penis??

Like first of all dude, you know why 🤦🏼‍♀️

Second, why are you asking right now, the 90000th time you’ve seen me pee, in a public bathroom?

At least a waitress who was in there thought it was funny 😂

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The baby has never said Mama. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s never made the m sound at all. Which, at 11 months, is… weird. And he’s a chatty baby! Started reduplicated babbling (dadada, bababa, etc) at 5 months. Has started approximating words. He says “nah!” for more, “oh!” for uh oh, and he attempts to copy some of my baby signs. He waves and claps and points a little, so his communication skills are all on track except for this one sound.

But there’s some suspicion that he struggles with closing his mouth all the way internally (which is why he’s in feeding therapy) because of excess cheek tissue, and I’m wondering if that could stop him from making the m sound correctly.

But our beloved OT is married to a speech therapist so I have (super limited, but good for questions like this) access to free speech advice 😂 I’ll call Early Intervention so fast if our OT’s wife thinks it’s even a possibility, but I’d rather not deal with the very flaky coordinator again if it’s either not a thing or our OT can pass along some exercises I can try on my own first.

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Last time my MIL was here, she built a bunch of furniture for us and set up the baby’s room. I was 37 weeks pregnant and it was the best thing she ever could’ve done.

This year… at least I pulled my weight 😂

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Ugh what do you put on your baby’s 1st birthday wishlist when you literally have everything?? 10 million Tonies, zoo membership, Pikler set, enough books to fill a Barnes and Noble, and every toy known to man.

I’m truly only sort of kidding 😩

People are going to ask for a wishlist since we’re having a party, and I can say “oh please don’t!” until I’m blue in the face, but I just know our people and I know they want to bring physical gifts. Which is lovely and so thoughtful! But my goodness, we do not need a single thing.

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May: booked the baby’s birthday party location

A month before the baby’s birthday: have done nothing else 🙃

So I guess I should get on that.