I've been away for what feels like forever, but I'm back now.

Spent just over a week with my parents over Christmas and came home yesterday - good to be back at home and in our own beds once more. Having Sam join us in a double bed is nowhere near as comfortable as in our queen bed!

I'm a bit spun out to realise that I'm entering into my third calendar year as a parent. Not that Sam saw much of 2008, but it's when he was born.

We got through his party - and I found having things work out with his party as I wanted them to helped me heal from our birth trauma quite a lot. Managed to not kill any of the inlaws as well, which was good. Lots of cool presents for Sam... and then Christmas not even a week later and even more presents for him... he's done well! But I know that we'll always have to make a huge effort to ensure that his birthday isn't swallowed by Christmas every year.

I can also report that he walks! We got him a push along walker for his birthday (he got it early) and only just started using it to walk around... and then after only a few days he ditches it and will now walk a few steps without holding on to anything. He still prefers to crawl as it gets him places faster, but he actually WALKS! He now weighs in at just over 11kg... he's got so big! Has a few more words, but not many of them that we can actually understand.

We're currently having issues convincing him to sleep this afternoon - I'd best go take over from DH.

BW