12 month update... when he's 13 months old

Yikes so much has changed in these past two months, but I'll attempt to cover it all... just skip to pictures and videos if you prefer :)

This picture just about sums up our life right now. I cannot get anything done unless this child is contained. Luckily sitting in the laundry basket is an acceptably fun activity for him.

physical
He's getting longer and leaner for sure. He seems tall to me lately. Stats at one-year checkup were 20lb 13oz, 28.5in (I think? Maybe it was 29.5?). I thought he would weigh more by now. Wearing 12-month or 18-month clothes. Oh and still eight teeth, but he's working on some molars. Oh and still the adorable mop of hair on top of his head.

Is it weird that I worked really hard this morning to get a pic of this adorable bed-head?

This picture kills me. My son is sitting in a Olan-Mills-esque pose on the serene lawn, while sporting a perfect mohawk and holding a pink Minnie mouse ball. Just a normal day for Jonathan at the lake.  

eating
He's been fully on "table foods" for a while now. Jon and I have a challenge every day to discover what Jonathan will be in the mood to eat. Most days he will at least try anything we put in front of him, but then he will have a string of days where it seems like he will not eat ANYTHING. He's not the best drinker. Some days he will only get in about 8oz of milk. We still nurse morning and night and occasionally during the day as needed. NO MORE PUMPING for me at work--yahooooo!!

sleep
Great. He just switched from morning naps to afternoon naps. But now that I wrote this on an official blog post, he will probably stop napping all together. The one bummer thing about his sleep is that he wakes up SO early! Like 5:30 or 6 most days. And it doesn't seem to matter what time we put him to bed... we wake up with the sun.

development
Jonathan is really smart. I am so impressed with his vocabulary. We estimate he has maybe a dozen for real words (daddy, ball, book, truck/vroom-vroom, light, balloon, shoe, water, block, Barton, button, apple, uh-oh, boat...), and a lot more almost-there words (Sarah, Cheerios, cheese, ffffff (which means fish, fan, or phone, depending on the context), curtain, tree, banana). It is so fun to hear what he is going to say every day! He will repeat almost anything we say in his little baby way, and he knows countless objects in books that he will point to. And he seriously understands everything we say. I can say "Go get the block and put it in the laundry basket," and he will look pensively at the block, then longingly at the laundry basket across the room, and make his decision about whether it is worth the energy to do it. We give him choices like at dinner "Do you want yogurt or ravioli?" and he sits back in his high chair and looks back and forth between the two options, weighing the pros and cons, and then will thrust his pointer finger in the direction of his final decision, declaring, "That." He is very decisive. One disadvantage of his smartness is that if I slip up and say "After this yogurt you can have some beans," he will stop eating the yogurt all together and point towards the fridge until I get out the beans. I guess stubbornness and smartness go hand in hand. Case in point: this boy's father ;)

His favorite thing to say, aside from app-pple or dadd-eee

He will do one sign: all done. He used to only do it at the table, but more recently all done refers to anything he doesn't want to be doing. Like sitting in his carseat. Or getting his diaper changed. Or sitting on mommy's lap. He doesn't protest to these things, he just calmly makes eye contact, raises his eyebrows, and does his sign. It's like a request. "Can I be done with this now?"

Pointing to body parts, until he gets distracted.

Finding his belly button is on the agenda about seven times per day. He likes to make sure it's still there. He also likes to make sure daddy's belly button is ok... Jon has to watch out if he is laying on the floor or couch, because Jonathan will lift his shirt and stick his finger right in it! Mama makes sure to be on her guard at all times :)

We are working on animal sounds. Baa-aaa is by far his favorite one. He often insists that other animals besides sheep make this sound. I don't have a video of this. Next time. 

One of his original songs. I like this one. "Dit-do-waa" is kind of catchy, eh?

Not walking yet. But he is oh-so-close. But he has been oh-so-close to a lot of things (rolling, crawling, pulling up, etc) this past year but was content to just stay where he's at.

We love that he can climb up on this ledge and can get around the barrier of his toy basket. LOVE IT.
But seriously, he is so cute when he puts his trucks on the ledge and plays with them. It's his favorite spot. 

Fine motor skills are getting a lot better. You all saw the video of him putting blocks into the bucket, which is a favorite past time for us. He also likes to hand things to us. Especially things he finds embedded into the carpet, like crumbs, string, and bits of plastic. He can entertain himself for a while just doing laps around the room cruising the furniture, stopping to stare at the trucks and cars ("vroom-vroom") outside, and emptying out his toy basket, considering each toy individually for a second before he tosses it aside. We still love reading books together, and he is able to turn all the pages by himself so he can sit and look at books on his own when he is in the mood.

personality
Three words sum up this little guy: smart, silly, and sweet. I've talked about the smart part. So let's delve into the silly.

Case in point: He was pretty sure these ducks were bouncing their heads up and down just for his enjoyment. He enjoyed it for quite some time.

Jonathan loves doing things to make us laugh. And he also cracks himself up routinely. I was listening to him on the monitor while he was trying to fall asleep and be kept busting out in laughter at who knows what. If there is an awkward moment he will look you straight in the eye and then do a heart-melting adorable "tip" of his head to the side, or start shaking his head back and forth rapidly, hoping you will chose to imitate him. 

Playing peek-a-boo with the curtains.

Cracking up with Lauren at the coffee shop. 

His sweet side is possibly my favorite part. Especially since we are nursing so infrequently, he will stop in the middle of playing, look around the room for me, and then beeline over to where I'm sitting for a quick hug and snuggle. I think I've mentioned before that he will give a kiss, and it's so sweet that he will initiate the kisses a lot. He also will kiss any stuffed animal, or virtually any animal in a book for that matter. He also kisses himself whenever he sees his reflection in a mirror. 

He's been in a mommy mood a lot the past few weeks, meaning I have to sneak out when I leave for work, but usually he catches me and I leave with him screaming in the background. Word has it that he calms down pretty quickly though. 

As much as Jonathan hates when I leave, this boy LOOOOVES his daddy. 

mama time

My goodness I love this boy. My goodness he is just so.much.FUN. He's such a great little companion and makes our life so great. It was a good month leading up to his birthday, getting to reflect on the year and look at where we are at. I'm just crazy about this kid.

As he is becoming more "kid" and less baby, he is of course having more preferences and wants to be into whatever he sees us doing. Thus, we have needed to create boundaries, something I admit that I suck at. While we are working on creating those boundaries and telling him no when he crosses them, I am starting to come to grips with the fact that being a disciplinarian probably just isn't my style of parenting and that is ok. No, I surely don't want my kids to be running amuck all day long, but I think my style is more looking him in the eye and talking to him to make him understand what is ok and what isn't. And I know he gets it. He is so good at understanding. And this child is a sucker for praise! Jon and I have found that the best method of "discipline" is just to make a big deal out of when he does something right (like when he opens the kitchen cabinets, we say "Can you close it?" and he will, over and over and over again, while we say "THANK YOU!" He loves it.). I know that the best way to raise my kids, in the area of discipline and otherwise, is to do what I am most comfortable with as a mom, as a person. That's not rocket science, I know, but man it always seems like a big revelation anytime you can say "I need to do what is best for me and for my kids and that might look different than other people." Probably all my reflections at the end of these updates are variations on that same theme. And there are probably many more variations that I will encounter in the years ahead!

My little travel buddy--this was in the airport about to come home after my girls weekend.