How has it already been one year?

In a family that's tightly bound in laughing together, complaining about each other, over-analyzing everyone, that has been through a lot, it can be hard to consider what life will be like with one more person in the mix.

And then that person is born, and it's hard to imagine how we all were before him. 

He's a year old today, Sweet Baby J, with big brown eyes just like the ones staring out at me from my own boy, but with expressions and shrugs and determination and an energy and a way about him all his own. His sturdy body and round head and whisps of hair remind me so much of my brother as a toddler, calling up memories of our childhood that I didn't even know were stored away. But how he moves and coos and catches on quickly makes his unique mark on the family.

We visited him last week to celebrate his birthday a bit early and Christmas a bit late, to watch him lunge toward the sole candle on his cake and climb over the plastic play fort my parents sent to him, to delight over his fake sneezes and sing-song "LOVE! YOU!" echoed back over and over until he found a new and more exciting way to make us laugh.

With him, Lil E is learning how to share time and attention, toys and his grandparents, my lap and his schedule. With him, I am making promises to take these boys to their first Bieber concert, to keep secrets, to send gifts only a faraway aunt would dare buy. With him, I am watching my mother reminisce about my brother as a baby, my father become even more himself as a grandfather, my brother find his way as a father.

The circle is stretching. Sometimes that's uncomfortable and uncertain. But at the center, a baby boy has made his way in to meet us, on the verge of walking, already talking, warm and funny and bright and opinionated and bringing us so much. How does time go by and love grow so fast?

Happy birthday, Sweet Baby J! Here's to many more candles on many more cakes for many, many years to come.