One Year Old

Amazing as it seems a year has now come & gone. You & I may not have met until you were a day old, but that does not seem to have impacted the bond we developed. One theme has remained consistent throughout your first year of life- you were a Momma's boy. Your level of dependency has had it's peaks & valleys, but when I am in the room you seem to keep very close tabs on what I am doing. I have a love hate relationship with this, but it probably falls more often to the love.

In the last couple of weeks you have started to cruise around on furniture, but have not tried to take any big steps away. You are still scooting around, but I do see you in a crawl position more often now. However, you quite often land flat on your tummy because you try to move quicker than your body has learned to go on all fours. Therefore you quickly get back onto your bum & scoot away. You still seem to save crawling to get you through tight spots. A couple of weeks ago you mastered getting up the stairs & you can also come down the proper way now too. The problem is that you do not realize that you NEED to come down on your tummy & cannot go head first. Therefore, although you are much better- stairs are still very much a danger zone for you.

In the right environment you are a chatty wee thing, but I still would not say you have said your first word. You say dada A LOT, but I am not convinced that you are using it to refer to your Dad yet. I think you just say it because you can & you always get a reaction. You point a lot & it often sounds like you are saying "that!", but again we are not sure. There are a lot of words it sounds like you are trying to say, but nothing that is clear yet. One thing is clear, you do want to talk!

You still love music. If I am holding you when I turn the radio on you will always smile and start bouncing in hopes of a dance around the living room. Your Dad has always been a great one to get out on the dance floor, but let's hope you develop a better rhythm than him. Trucks and cars are your favourite items of play right now. You still love to drive Sydney's fire truck or little car around the living room & kitchen. You got a whole fleet of your own for your birthday so I sure hope you like trucks & cars for awhile yet. You also like to hit things around like you are playing hockey, but we were not successful in finding a little hockey stick for you that we didn't fear was going to cause serious injury. Hopefully we will find something by Christmas.

Your sister loves to colour & you are also developing the same love. We got you an Aquadoodle mat for your birthday in hopes of finding something that you liked to do & could be done with less argument from your sister. We also don't really care if you put this pen in your mouth because it won't hurt you, but would like for you to learn to keep them out. Hopefully you learn this lesson much sooner than Sydney did. There were many days that Sydney came home from day care with very dark spots around her mouth. You are a pretty clever little boy with puzzles. It is neat to watch the look of concentration on your face when you are trying to figure out anything new.

You are still all about the applause. Whenever you do something that you think we should take note of you clap. It is really quite funny. You have learned the sign for 'please' and you even used it once when I told you 'No' to something. Clever little boy. I was so impressed that I did end up giving you what you wanted anyway.

We don't go to the doctor for your 1-year check-up until the 13th and I am quite curious to see how much you weigh. You are one solid boy. We are positive that you meet the weight requirement for the car seat, so you are now sitting forward in the car. This picture is of your first ride facing forward & you thought it was pretty neat. The wind in your face was a new experience.

Last month I said that each month you have something that you do that drives us crazy. Last month my big complaint was about diaper changes & there was a big improvement in that area. Thankfully this month you didn't throw any major curves at us. On holidays you were waking up MUCH too early in the morning & you had a couple of bad nights, but you were pretty good natured throughout the day so it wasn't a big deal. We learned afterward that one of your molars poked through & the other one on the top is also starting to poke through- so you were forgiven because considering the size of those teeth you did pretty good. You now have 9 teeth all the way through, 1 partly poking out, & I can feel the bottom molars starting to push up- so you definitely have a mouthful of teeth already.

I went back to work last week & was sad that this had to happen before your birthday. We took today off to be sure that we could celebrate with you. You seem to love day care. Yesterday when I picked you up to come home you came to me, said your hello & then pushed me away to get back down & play with the toys. You will also reach out for Jo sometimes when I am holding you. This makes me happy that you seem to love her, but sad that there is someone else who you 'want' to go to when your Mommy is already holding you. However, I am sure that if I gave you to her- you would want to come back to me. I haven't done that test, because I am not prepared to deal with it if you don't come right back to me.

Your Dad always scolds me when I call you a baby because he says you are a big boy. I agree that you are a big baby, but essentially you are still a baby. I promise that I will stop calling you a baby sometime within the next 6 months. If not, definitely by the time your friends start coming around.