15 months old!

My baby is fifteen months old!

He doesn't really seem like a baby anymore, but I still treat him like one!  He still loves to be rocked and snuggled and I am more than willing to oblige.

Here's his stats from his well check up today:
Weight:  23 lbs. 3 oz.
Height:  30.5 inches
Head Circumference:  18 3/4 inches

Food:
He loves to eat.  Anything, anywhere, anytime.  He's still not very good at eating with a fork or spoon.  We give it to him every meal and I try to work with him some, but he usually gives up after a while and just eats with his hands.  I am trying not to worry.  I know he'll get it eventually.  It is funny though because with Lucy I had a lot of time to sit down during meals and help her figure out the fork and spoon, and with Ian I haven't been able to give him the same amount of effort.   Some of his favorite foods are bananas, blueberries, apples, and smoothies.  And also anything that you are eating.  :)

Motion:
He finally started walking at 14 mos and it's like he always knew how.  He's starting to try to run more and it's funny because it's really just momentum and he normally ends up falling over at the end of it, but he thinks it's funny.  He loves to climb on things, and try to do whatever big sister does.


He has this monkey blanket that he loves loves loves.  Lucy never had a stuffed toy or blanket that she ever wanted, despite my trying to get her attached to something.  Ian was given multiple stuffed toy blankie animals and for some reason this monkey is what he picked.  Now Monkey has to go everywhere with him.  We don't have to bring him along in the car, but if Ian is at the house and someone says "Monkey" he will immediately ask for it or go looking for him.  He has to have it to go to sleep.  I think it's adorable.  I did order another monkey just to be safe in case Original Monkey goes missing or falls apart from being washed.

Ian is such a delight.  I love him to pieces and I love having the privilege of being his mom and watching him become his own little person.

14 months old!

Yesterday Ian turned 14 months old.  He's been battling what we all have around here -- some kind of congestion, runny nose, and coughing.  One night last week it kept him up ALL night but since then he's been back to sleeping through the night.  Sleeping through the night also means we've now moved to ONE nap per day (insert Mommy's sad face here).  So he and Lucy both get up around 7am and then he naps from about 1:30 until usually 3:30 or 4.

But the big news is that yesterday he took his first unassisted steps!  For a while now he will "walk" towards someone or something if you are holding his hands, but yesterday we stood him up and he was walking towards Wesley and he wasn't holding on to anything and just walked about 3-4 steps by himself!!!  I was so proud.  Let's hope it continues.  He only wants to do it once and then he's back to crawling.  I get it -- walking is probably hard work.

He's such a big boy now.  I'm loving every minute with him.

13 months old!

Well, it's only 15 days late, but I thought I should probably write this post before he turns 14 months old.  LOL.

Let's see -- where to start...

Eating
What doesn't he eat?  He wants everything and anything.  He even wants to feed himself, which is very very messy and frustrating sometimes, but it's so cute.  He's weaned, too, mostly just in the last week or so.  I just stopped offering it and he didn't seem to care at all.

Boy in Motion
He's not walking yet, and not even standing on his own, but boy, does he get around.  He cruises on everything, and he crawls super fast.  He'll "walk" if someone is holding his hands, but he shows NO interest at all in walking.

Talking
He loves to babble.  He says, "Nana", "Papa", "Apple", "Water", and "Night Night".  He has other ways of making himself heard, too, mainly screaming!!!  Yes, if he doesn't get his way, he just screeches.  We're trying to nip that in the bud by also helping him with the words that seem to fail him. :)

Sleeping
The past week or so, he has basically slept through the night.  He still wakes up, and cries out, but he usually goes right back to sleep.  I've had to get up a couple nights and rock him back to sleep.  I hope this is a new direction!

Ian turns 1!

I really can't believe I am typing a blog entry for Ian's first birthday already!

This year has seemed very long but when I think about it, it also seems to have gone by so quickly.  I don't remember much about him being a little baby.  It seems like he's always been this little boy just playing with Lucy.

ALL CLEAN AND GETTING READY FOR BED!

He had his one year old check up yesterday, and here are his stats:

Weight: 21 lbs., 1 oz.

Height:  29"

Head Circumference:  18 1/2"

Eating:

We've come a long way, baby!  I really started to notice it when we were at a friend's mountain cabin a few weekends ago.  When I tried to feed him baby food, he would push it away, but when we fed him table food, he would eagerly accept it.  I had bought him some Baby Mum Mum crackers a few days before to try it out, and I really think that helped him a lot.  They dissolve so quickly that he can get the feeling of biting something but then it turns into a thick mush that he can just swallow.  So from then on it's been no turning back!  He still eats baby food occasionally, because it takes me 20 seconds to heat it, rather than 10 minutes to fix him something, so it's easier when I'm in a hurry!   But mostly he just eats what we are eating in an appropriate form.  He eats bananas, baby food, avocado, pasta, veggies, breads, oatmeal, yogurt, smoothies, pancakes, muffins, anything!  I love it.  We had his iron re-tested at his one year appt. and it was still a little low, like it was at his 9 month appt., but she said just to keep trying to feed him iron-rich foods and it should go up.  I think just eating table food will help, since most of what we eat for dinner is veggies.  He still nurses 3-4 times a day.  I thought I was going to stop nursing him as soon as he turned 1 because we were having HORRIBLE issues with his teeth biting me.  SO painful.  But for some reason, he just stopped so it hasn't been painful lately.  He's been a little under the weather this week so I am nursing him a little more than I might just to give him an extra immune boost.  I don't have any specific plans to stop.  I'm sure the more and more food he eats, the less he will want to nurse, and that's okay with me.  I'm ready to stop whenever he is! :)  Speaking of teeth, I know he has six, and I can see one more on the bottom coming in and the pediatrician said she saw one more on the top, too.  So there may be more and more teeth coming in even this week.

Motion:

He is still crawling and cruises the furniture like a speed racer, but he doesn't even try to stand up by himself and he does NOT like it when we try to "help" him walk.  He's not showing any interest in walking by himself.  He loves to walk with a toy walker -- he does that a lot during the day!  I'm not worried.  I know he will get it.  He's just getting into waving, too, and he LOVES to wave at Wesley when he leaves for work and when he comes home.  It's the cutest little wave.  He loves to try to climb, especially into the bathtub when I start running the water for their nightly bath.  He loves to stand up in the bathtub, too (not allowed!) and he loves to try to climb on things to reach other things.  Yikes!

Talking:

He can say Momma, Dada, Nina/Nana (?), night-night, uh-oh, and tonight in the bath he said "Bubble" (seriously!) and then I was taking him to change a poopy diaper after I had already gotten his pajamas on, and I said, "You have some poopoo in your diaper!" and it sounded like he tried to say poopoo and diaper.  We kept trying to get him to say diaper and he sounds like he is trying so hard.  He says a lot of other random things, too, but those are the clearest.

Sleeping:

Nothing new to report.  Still naps twice a day, or once a day if we happen to be out and about during what would normally be his morning nap.  He takes good, long naps (praise the Lord!) and he sleeps very well at night, only waking up once still.  With Lucy, we had to eventually let her cry a little bit before she learned to sleep through the night, but that's next to impossible with Ian because Lucy sleeps in the next room, so if Ian were to cry at all, it would wake her up, and then we'd have two awake kids on our hands.  So because it's not interfering with me too much, I just get up and feed him once a night and he goes right back to sleep.  The other night he slept through the night but that is an exception, not the rule.

What a joy it is to be Ian's mommy!  I am constantly amazed at how smart he is, at his little personality, at the things he knows that I KNOW I did not teach him (both good and bad!), and at how much he takes in.  I was thinking the other day about how when Lucy was 1, she had all age-appropriate toys and she barely watched any TV or videos, and she went to age-appropriate play outings, etc.  Now Ian gets the benefit of having toys that are for older kids, so he gets to figure them out.  He gets to watch Elmo's World while we're eating breakfast because Lucy is watching it.  He gets to go to storytime for 2 year olds at the library because I take Lucy there.  So he is getting the benefit of learning for older kids and it shows! He already knows so many songs and hand motions and signs ... it's crazy.  I love watching him grow, and I am really savoring each day with him.

Ian, we love you so much, and we are so happy you are our son.  It only gets better from here!

Ian's first birthday party!

I know his birthday isn't until 11/13, but we had his party today to celebrate with family.  I went back and forth about having a big first birthday party with all of our friends and family but our condo isn't big enough for all those people, and I didn't want to pay to have it at an outside place, so we decided just to limit it to family.  We are lucky that most of our family lives in the Atlanta area now and those that don't were able to come up!

He LOVED his cake (Who wouldn't?!) and he got some awesome clothes and books and toys from his grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.

Here's some pictures that my mom took -- aren't they great?!  But of course, the subject was pretty darn cute.

Opening his present from us ... Mega Bloks! :)

Digging in to his cake -- no problems there!

My handsome boy!  Oh, I love him!

Enjoying his new books from Uncle Luke, Aunt Kayla, Olivia, Noah, Kate, and Micah

A candle on a tiny sliver of cake (I know, I know, this overcautious mom ruined all the fun of having a huge piece of cake to ram into your mouth!)

Enjoying his family!

Eleven months old!

My boy's getting older!

This is the last month birthday before I have to say I have a one year old and a two year old.  (It sounds crazy when you put it that way!  Only until March, when Lucy turns 3.)

Eating:
Nothing different, except that he eats a lot MORE now.  He still nurses in the morning, at lunch, after nap, and before bed, and once during the night.  He eats a big container of baby food at each meal and sometimes yogurt, too.  We've started to give him bits of whatever we're eating, too, and he seems to like that as long as it's something very mushy (banana, tofu, rice, quinoa, pasta, etc.)  I know he'll get up to eating more textured foods and I hope it's sooner rather than later but I'm not going to push him.  He definitely likes baby food fruits more than veggies, but I don't blame him, because have you tasted baby food peas lately?  NASTY.

He has six teeth (that I know of) ... two on the bottom and four on the top.  I have a feeling he's in the process right now of getting some, but I can't feel them yet so I don't know where they will pop through.

Sleeping:
The same!  I have been trying to be home in the mornings when he needs to take a nap because if he doesn't, then he takes one long midday nap but then is way too tired before bed.  It's best when he can take his mid-late morning nap and then an afternoon nap ... best for him and better for Mommy!  He still wakes up once a night, but honestly it is not something I am bothered by at all.  Of course I will be ecstatic once he's really consistently sleeping through the night, but getting up once a night to feed him really quick and put him back to bed is fine with me.

Lucy didn't sleep through the night until she was over a year old, but I was pregnant with Ian and I was getting desperate for her to sleep through the night because I was pregnant and tired and envisioning a life with two kids that woke up at all hours of the night.  Plus Lucy was not the type of baby that you just fed and put back in the bed.  She had to be rocked fully back to sleep and then you had to carefully put her down and try to sneak away before she woke up.  Plus she was still waking up multiple times a night (3-5 times).  Ian has really been such a great sleeper -- I know to be thankful!  I always put him in his bed fully awake and it is never a problem.

Movement:
His primary mode of transportation is still crawling, but he definitely loves to stand and cruise at any opportunity.  He can stand on his own for just a few seconds, but I have a feeling that probably by a year old or maybe a few months after he might get this walking thing down.

Talking:
His favorite words right now are "Dada" and "Nana" which we thought referred to his Nana, but now I think we are certain it applies to our dog, Nina.  :)  (sorry, Mom!)  He loves to point at Nina and say "Nana".  He says "Mama" very clearly when he is upset, but otherwise it's "Dada" or "Nana".  He always says, "Uh-oh" and in the right context.  If he drops something or if Lucy drops something or knocks something over, he says "Uh-oh."  I think it's adorable!  He says lots of other babbling type stuff.

Personality:
What can I say?  I am in love with him!  He is sweet, observant, funny, snuggly, busy, smart, and my buddy!  He loves his sister, and he loves his Mommy, and he's now started to actively want to be held by his Daddy when he can.  He still likes to be with me the most, but he's getting independent and wanting to get down and explore things when we go places.  He is always surprising me with what he knows and what he's connected in his mind.  When I see him, my heart melts!  I look forward to celebrating his one year birthday in a month, and I literally still feel like it was yesterday that they pulled him up out of the water and put him on my chest and it was like my heart had burst with happiness and love.  My perfect little boy.

Ten months old!

I can't believe it, but he's ten months old!

Eating:
He's still nursing ... when he wakes up, around lunchtime, late afternoon, and then again before bed, and then usually once during the night.  He also eats a little jar of baby food and maybe a half-carton of baby yogurt at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  He isn't a fan of very thick or textured food still, but we keep offering it and I know he'll get it eventually.

Sleeping:
He takes two naps (if all goes as planned)... once around midmorning and then again around 2.  He goes to bed anytime between 7-8, and gets up around 7am, and he still wakes up once a night.

Playing:
He crawls very fast, and can pull up on anything and he is just starting to cruise from one place to another, like the coffee table to the couch, etc.  He loves to be with Lucy and I wherever we are.  In fact, he can be happy as a clam one minute and if we leave the room to get something he will start crying.  He doesn't really put things in his mouth like Lucy did.  He just loves to play with whatever Lucy is playing with, too.  We have fun just sitting in their rooms, playing with their toys.  He loves Lucy and she makes him laugh!  I posted this video above so you can see what a typical interaction between them is like.  It's all fun until somebody gets hurt!!!

Talking:
He says "mama" and "baba" and a string of other unintelligible sounds.  "Mama" is definitely the clearest thing he says.

Personality:
He has very distinct personality traits.  He is a mama's boy!  As long as he's with me, he's happy.  He's starting to reach out and want to go to Wesley, though, even if I'm holding him.  He does NOT like being left with other people, unless it's like my mom here at our house or something.  He's either super happy and bubbly or being very shy and clingy.  You never know what you'll get, although the shy and clingy side tends to be more dominant if he's tired or hungry.

It's amazing that even at 10 months old he seems like such a baby still!  We started trying to have another baby when Lucy was 10 months old, and I can't even imagine doing that with Ian still being so young!!!  Crazy how the second child will do that to you.

We love him and I can't believe his first birthday will be here in only two months.