Twelve months old!

02/13/2013 - Twelve months old!

(I wrote this and took the pictures the day after your first birthday, but only just now got around to downloading & organizing the pictures)

Judah William, you are twelve months old - ONE! I know I say it every month, but this age is my favorite! You are just so much fun, and you are picking up new things at lightening speed. It's mind blowing how fast this year has gone. I heard a quote recently that went something like "the days and nights are long but the years are short"... which is so very true. The nights sometimes drag on when we're in the throes of teething, or when you wake up every hour at night it and feels like I'll never sleep again... but then I wake up the next morning and suddenly a month has gone by. Each day I am wrapped up in loving you and feeding you and getting you to take naps and playing and going for walks... and then all of a sudden you're a whole year old.

[Now that you are a year old, I think I will change the format of these monthly updates (after this one). They will probably be shorter and more bullet-points, just to keep up with the fast pace of life that you now require!]

Your last set of monthly sticker pictures on the recliner! (sniff sniff) (I may have gone a little overboard)

First, we played with an egg shaker.

"All done, mom!"

"I want down"

Distracted you with some Sophie chewing.

"Oh!"

Pensive.

Smirk.

Charmer.

You like to stand up and give me a heart attack by bouncing and rocking the chair.

"Momma, I REALLY want to get down!"

Took a little break and came back smiley, with the help of Pingu the stuffed penguin.

"Look Momma, it's Pingu!"

That Pingu. He's a funny one. He kept jumping out from behind Momma's back...

 ... and waving his wings from behind the camera

... and flying up in the air!

How big you are: 

At your 1-year-old appointment on 02/14/2013 you weighed 24 lbs 5oz (69th percentile), and you were 29.5 inches long (34th percentile). You head circumference was 48.5 cm (93rd percentile). You are a short, chunky little thing with a big ole' noggin, no doubt to house that brilliant mind of yours :)
Your strawberry blonde hair is getting even thicker and longer - it is very fine but you have lots of it! Your face is looking more and more grown-up to me and you are slowly but surely losing your chubby baby rolls... sob!
You are wearing mostly 12 month size clothes, but you still wear 9 month onesies and sleepers since you still short enough. Some of your pants are 18 month size to fit around your chunky little belly, but we have to roll them up on your short legs :) Your shoe size is 3.5 wide... but you can wear some of your smaller size 4 shoes now too. You are wearing size 4 disposable diapers.


What you LOVE:

Bath time, as always, is your favorite time of day. You have now figured out how to turn the taps... so I have to watch you closely in case you scald yourself with hot water! Fortunately they are quite stiff so you can't turn them too much. You also love to blow bubbles in the water with your mouth - you finally figured out how to do it this month, though I've been trying to teach you for a while... you would just end up drinking the water before!

You LOVE the freedom that you have now that you can walk everywhere - you much prefer to be on the ground walking rather than in a stroller or in our arms. This causes some problems, though, because you are still so young and you have no idea what you can and cannot do! For example, you CANNOT walk off a ledge, or run straight into the deep pond with the duckies. But you would certainly do so, having no idea of the consequences, if Momma or Dada were not there to stop you. So life has become a little more interesting (and exhausting!) around here over the past couple of months!

You LOVE to go for walks to see the duckies. I can't say the words "walk", "outside", or "duckies" out loud anymore unless we are going for a walk that very moment. You run to get your shoes and then start banging on the door to go out. Sometimes you try to climb right into your stroller!

You LOVE all things Pingu. I let you watch some Pingu on TV probably every other day and you sit completely still, entranced with it. We have a little book from your Great Grandma Driver all about penguins and you just love to read it and see the pictures of "pingus". And for your first birthday, Nana and Grandad got you a stuffed penguin, which has of course been named "Pingu". Stuffed Pingu goes to bed with you, and when you wake up and call for me, you always pick Pingu up and hand him to me first and then reach to be picked up yourself.

You LOVE to talk to people on Skype... you get excited whenever you hear the ringtone, and you start talking and showing off :)

You LOVE books... you will bring books to me and then crawl into my lap and wait for me to read to you. You will also happily sit for long periods of time and flip through books on your own, pointing at the different animals, cars, sun, moon... etc... You will make the animal noises for the animals you know, and car noises too :)

You LOVE opening and closing things... drawers, cupboard doors, the baby gate. And you could spend HOURS playing with the dishwasher racks... pushing them in and out and inspecting the wheels and the tracks that they run on. You love to open your dresser drawers, and pull all the towels and cloth diapers and jammies out, and then stuff them all back in and close the drawers again.

You LOVE music and singing... you sing along with a soft little voice - very adorable. You also have really good rhythm, and you bounce or nod your head to the beat of the music! You love to dance with Momma and Dada. You have your own little drum with drumsticks, egg shakers, a maraca, a tambourine, and bells... you love to shake those to music too.


What you don't like:

- Being restrained. You don't like to be stuck anywhere that you're not moving... in a stroller that isn't going fast enough, in your car seat when the car is not driving. When we're out on a walk you really prefer to be walking yourself rather than ride in your stroller.

- Diaper changes or clothes changes.

- Being put down to play too soon after waking up from a nap. You like to snuggle for a while and get your bearings before you'll let me set you down! We often sit and rock in your room for a few minutes after you wake up while you snuggle in my lap, and then we go out to face the world.


What you've been up to this month:

Walking: I can hardly remember a time when you weren't walking... it seems so natural to you now! You took your first wobbly solo steps at 9 and 3/4's months old, and at around 10 and 3/4's months old you really started walking full time.

Talking: You are talking up a storm lately. You are always trying to mimic what we say, though it still comes out rather garbled (but we'll forgive you since you are only 12 months old!). For example, if I say "hi there!" you'll say "iiiii - deh". When you're playing, you constantly jabber away to yourself using different tones and inflections.

Words (that you use consistently): Mama, Dada, banana ("nah-nah-nah!"... you love your bananas, Grandad should be proud!... the two of you could eat bananas all day long), all done (ah-dah), all gone (ah-gah), Pingu ("ba-boo", in reference to both your stuffed penguin, and the TV show), uh-oh,  no-no, hi (hiiiiiii), bye-bye (bah-bah). The most recent one is "Xbox" which you pronounce "eh - boh". [I feel this word requires a bit more explanation! Our entertainment system is our Xbox... we watch movies and TV shows  (Pingu!) on it, listen to music on it etc... and we have the Xbox Kinect so we can control it with our voices. You have to address it by saying "Xbox" and then whatever you want it to do... "Netflix", "play" or "pause" etc. So we often address the Xbox in a commanding tone, and you have picked up on this. You like to say "eh - boh" while looking at the TV screen waiting for something to happen. It's incredible adorable! And it's also really funny, because back when you were just a few weeks old your Dada and I joked that your first word would be "xbox" because we are always talking to the Xbox to have it play music or Netflix or something... and sure enough, "xbox" is one of your first words!]
You've said a few other obvious words, too, but not consistently yet so I won't count them :)

Sounds: You just love animals, and you've started saying a few animal sounds whenever you see an animal - woof woof (uhf uhf) when you see a dog, meow (m-owh) when you see a cat, and quack quack (cah cah) when you see a duck. You surprised me when we went to the zoo, because as soon as you saw the lions you got really excited and started saying "rawr rawr"... you'd only seen pictures of lions in books and on my baby animals phone app before... but you knew what they were and what sound they make! You have also learned the monkey sound "oo-oo-ah-ah", and you say it whenever you see your stuffed monkey, or monkeys in storybooks. You also love cars and trucks, and you say vroom vroom (vuhm vuhm) whenever you see one, and when you're driving your toy cars around.

Baby signs: Milk, all done, light, bath, duck, and bird are the ones you have down... and you're on the verge of getting a whole bunch more (dog, outside, car, ball, eat, drink, more). You also wave "hi" and "bye-bye" and clap your hands.

Things you understand (and usually obey!): "Sit on your bottom", "Close the door/gate", "Come here please", "Bring/give that to Momma", "Don't touch that", "Be gentle", "Where is _____?" (you look around the room until you find whatever it is!), "Clap hands!"

Things you can identify and point to: nose, mouth, belly button, toes, ball, cars, ducks, dogs, cats, penguins, lions, monkeys, birds, phone, xbox

Teeth:  You got tooth #5 on 01/23/2013 (top right next to the two middle ones). You got tooth #6 (top left next to the two middle ones) somewhere around 02/07/2013 - 02/08/2013. Now you have four teeth on top and two on bottom :)

Food: You are slowly getting more into solid food. You are very texture sensitive, and while you will eat things like bread that you can bite of and chew, if something is being fed to you on a spoon or out of a pouch, it has to be a smooth puree... if it has any lumps or textures in it , you gag and choke and spit it out (so NO oatmeal or anything like that, sigh!). You all-time favorite food are the Happy Munchies Organic Cheese, Brocolli, and Kale corn puffs... you suck on them and they melt in your mouth... you could eat those all day long. I wish your favorite food wasn't something processed like that, even though it is on the healthier end of processed foods... I wish I could get you to eat other foods as happily as you eat those! Your other favorite food is bananas... you LOVE bananas. You get super excited when you see me peeling one for you. I usually break the banana in half and give you one half at a time and you munch away on it. You'll take bites here and there of our food. I got some reusable squeezy pouches, so I make smoothies and purees (like sweet potato and carrot and white bean, or spinach and fruit and yogurt) and you will usually suck those down happily. You favorite store-bought pouches are Ella's Kitchen organic smoothies.

You are still going strong with nursing, showing no signs of wanting to stop any time soon!

Sleep: Sigh. You do go down to sleep for naps and bedtime well, but you are still waking up 3+ times a night. Sometimes the first time I can get you back to sleep without nursing, but after that you want to nurse and snuggle... you are such a snuggle bunny at night, you just want to be right next to me. Most nights you end up in our bed around 3am. We are going to do Dr. Jay Gordon's night time weaning plan sometime in the near future, to get you to sleep through the night. But we need to work up the nerve and energy first!

Things you do:
- You give "high fives" when we ask for them :)
- You point at everything... you point at things in books when I ask you where they are, you ask me about things by pointing at them and saying "eh? eh? eh?" forcefully... as if to say "what is this?" or "I want that" and it's easy to tell by your tone what it is that you are asking - you point at things and say "eh?" when you want me to tell you what it is, you point at things and say "EH!" when you want me to get it for you, or you want to go "over there" etc.
- You love to show off for people - and you do this funny little head-tilt-shoulder-shrug-and-grin thing to act cute and shy. You are becoming such a little character! When someone comes over you act shy and cute and hide behind momma or dada, and peek your head out and grin at them... and slowly get closer and closer to them, often running back to momma or dada in between. Once you've warmed up to people you run around being adorable and showing off all your tricks :)
- You "talk" on our phones - you hold them up to your ear and jabber away!
- If you want Momma or Dada to do something like build a tower for you, you will bring us one of your blocks and say "ah! ah! ah!" or something like that, demandingly :) Or if you want to play with our phones, you will bring them to us to turn on. If you want to watch Pingu you point at the TV and Xbox and yell!
- When we turn Pingu on, you sit down on your little bottom about 2 meters away from the TV and watch with rapt attention.
- You throw little temper tantrums when you don't get your way! If we tell you no to something or scold you for touching the Xbox (for example), you flop down on your bottom and cry! You have also learned to do what we call the "floppy baby" where if you don't want to do something you will go limp when we try to pick you up or take you away from something!
- You get frustrated when you can't communicate your wishes... you clench your fists and set your jaw and yell in frustration. When that happens, I try to help you tell me what you want by asking you questions and pointing at things.
- You try to figure out how things work. You are fascinated by things like the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer, the blender, the vacuum etc. You beg me to pick you up so you can see the clothes swishing around in the water in the washing machine, and you like to put your hand on top of the center pole as it spins the clothes. You try to climb in the dryer and the dishwasher whenever they're open to see inside. Whenever the vacuum or the blender or the microwave (or any other appliance) are on, you have to be right there watching and trying to figure them out - you want to touch them and examine them, and you try to imitate the noises with your voice. You are such a little engineer just like your Dada!


You had your first birthday party on 02/09/2013! It was super fun, and I will do a separate post with pictures etc. We could not have pulled it off without cousin Emily and Uncle James! Momma went a little overboard with all of her ideas for your little party, and kind of lost her mind on party day but fortunately Emily and Uncle James (and Dada) were there to keep her sane :) It was such a fun day and a special little party.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, my darling one-year-old, you are peacefully asleep as I finish this. I can't believe how big you look in your crib these days - you looked so tiny the first time we laid you in there. Now it seems like you fill it all up. I love to watch you sleeping, eyelashes curled against your flushed cheeks and your perfect little rosebud lips slightly parted. It's the image of peacefulness. The moment you open your eyes you turn into a little ball of energy, so goodness knows we need some peacefulness in between wakings :)

We love you Judah William... every inch of you is perfect to us - from adorable nose to adorable toes. We love getting to know your little self as you spread your wings. You bring such wondrous joy to our lives.