He’s still no giant, but it’s hard to believe Joe was ever this small:

We used to take him out on that porch swing at night to get him calmed down for sleep. Just 365 days later, he’s so good at sleeping, he can do it while eating breakfast:

In other news, he’s working on saying “Mama” when I ask him to. He said it once, spontaneously, right around Mothers Day. But since then, not much. In the past couple of days, he has said it back to me as “Baw Baw.” Good enough!

(Of course, he says “Dada” all day long.)

I just love it when Joe gets really tickled at something and can’t stop laughing.

The look on his face here is identical to the look on mine when Patrick and I came out of the chapel on our wedding day:

Pure joy!

Joe is enjoying being a 1-year-old. He looks less like a baby and more like a little boy every day. I’m so eager to see what 3-year-old Joe is like, or 10-year-old Joe, or (yikes) teenage Joe. At the same time, I want him to stay little and snuggly for as long as possible.

The last thing Patrick and I do before going to bed is tiptoe into Joe’s room and look at him for a minute. I imagine we’ll always be tempted to do that. Will he be home from college one weekend, and open his eyes at 1 a.m. to see us smiling sappily down at him?