I’ve now been a father for an entire year. After spending so much of my life waiting and hoping for that to happen, and going through IVF and all its emotions with my wife, I am so incredibly proud to call myself a dad.

This past year, I have held a baby every single day, and every day I think about how one day he’ll be too big to hold. Every parent I know says that time goes by so fast and practically implores you to live in the moment and enjoy it while it lasts. When he was born, I took the first 9 weeks off and it was the best time ever. Filled with sleep deprivation caused hallucinations and anxiety about doing the wrong things, but yet still the best thing ever. I loved him sleeping on me for hours, doing tummy time together, and just staring at him in awe, knowing that I would do anything for him.

How fitting it is that right after I write that line, he wakes up and I need to go put him back to sleep.

As he learned to roll, smile, giggle, pick up a ball, point, clap, crawl, stand and begin to step, one thing has not changed. My face is in his almost every moment we are together. I talk to him constantly, making weird noises, sticking my tongue out at him, kissing his toes, bathing him (with progressively less screaming and more playing).

I love that little boy with every part of my being and I want to make sure he knows it.

Andrea and I went for a walk when he was 16 days old and we were like “can you believe we’ve been doing this for 16 days?” Now here we are after an entire year. He’s grown so much, we’ve learned so much, and yet still basically know nothing. We still have anxiety about doing things wrong, or wondering why certain things are the way they are. Why doesn’t he eat more? When he does eat, will he choke on that new food? Does he drink enough water? When will he sleep through the night? Is he too hot? How can I protect him from himself?

I bet that last one is really going to last through much more than the first year of life.

I have heard people say they don’t know how I show up to work with so much energy after being awake for half the night with a baby and I guess it’s the same as any parent. You just do it because you have to. Because you need to. And I want to. Sure, I would love for us both to sleep through the night, never having to comfort a shrieking near-inconsolable baby, and how great would it be to never deal with an absolute meltdown just because his face needs to be cleaned.

But every day, no matter how exhausted or frustrated I am, I look at him and see a level of joy I had never known before. I hold him and pray that I get to keep holding him day after day after day, and I hope that he becomes a person who loves to be hugged no matter how old he gets.

I simultaneously want him to grow and learn and see the person he turns into, and yet I also never want him to change from this beautiful joyful baby that I get to play with every day.

Now that my wife has gone back to work, I look forward to picking him up from daycare every day, and always having a baby mum-mum cracker in his car seat as a snack for him on the way home. I plop him into the seat and he looks for the cracker right away. I promised him I would always have a snack for him, and seeing him look for it every day makes me feel like I am not letting him down.

I walked past a window in his daycare the other day, and I wasn’t aware he was in that room at the end of the day. The teacher in the other room pointed me to the second classroom, and by the time I opened that door (5 seconds), I took one look at him and saw that he was on the verge of tears but he completely calmed down when I entered the room. The teachers said he saw me walk past and instantly his whole body changed like he knew that I was looking for him but didn’t know where he was. The look on his face when he knew I had found him was something special. It made me feel so connected to him.

I love him more than anything. It’s been a great year and I am so happy to celebrate him and keep doing this thing called life, day after day, as long as I am blessed to be here with him.

Happy 1st Birthday, Myles. I love you. Also why have you woken up yet again?