housiversary

One year ago today, P and I closed on our first house. We didn't move in until about a month later, but we've owned this house now for a year. A year! It goes so fast.

This picture was taken that day: March 24, 2006. I found it in my Kodak photo album with all the pictures from that day. I'm somewhat amazed by how much work we've done on the house. It certainly needs a lot more, but I would have completely forgotten how much we've done if we hadn't decided to run around the house and take lots of pictures of the vacant rooms and bare floors.

Baby-j looks so small here; he was only 7 months old then. Before having baby-j, I didn't quite understand why people referred to the age of small children in months, rather than in years and half-years. Part of the reason, of course, is to have space to mark the developmental milestones that occur in a child's life: first smile, first roll, first laugh, first crawl, first steps, first word. But there's something about marking time in months that slows the time, even a bit. Because when they hit a year, you can't quite believe it's only been a year, since those months added up so quickly and without your quite noticing, and your son has grown so very much.

I have my own litany of which baby-j is a part, and it's something like this: first apartment together, first car, first baby, first house. P and I have had 4 of the first, 5 of the second. I can't count higher than 1 yet for the last two.