Twelve Months!

My baby is now a toddler!

This time we couldn't even get him to sit still and look at the camera.

We had Neil's 1 year check up on his birthday and he was 3' tall exactly (57th percentile) and 20 lb 6.4 oz (35th percentile). So overall he used to be the 100th percentile in height and he seems to be leveling out but his weight is about the same when you look at the percentile.

Neil is very mobile. He's not walking but I think he could be if he really wanted to. He cruises along furniture, walks with us holding his hands, and even walks with a walking thing. I don't know what to call it. It's like the old ball popper I had when I was that age (aging myself here!). He can't lean on it, it's not one of those things that supports. Anyway, with that he can hold on and I have to kind of guide it but if I guide it he's walking on his own pushing it. I just have my hands on either side of the handle. So I think it's just him making up his mind that he wants to walk (and I'm not claiming he can walk yet but I think this is just like rolling and crawling- he had to make up his mind he wanted to do both).

It's probably a blessing that he's not walking- crawling gets him around quickly as it is! Although I get tired of helping him with that toy, walking around. He wants to play with it and we just walk in circles around his play room. He lasts longer than I do.

Neil also stands on his own to some extent but when he realizes what he's doing he plops down. Go figure.

Neil now has a second tooth and thank goodness for the most part he doesn't bite. He still gives zombie kisses (and now at times adds a tongue lick to the kiss). I should clarify a zombie kiss is when he comes at us with his mouth open wide and basically puts his mouth on our face or whatever. He's doing it to the kids at daycare too. The director kinda got uptight about it and told me he's biting the other kids. But he's not actually biting. He does it to me all the time and I never feel his teeth. I also haven't heard from anyone else (daycare worker) that he's actually bitten, and they have reassured me that this is a stage and it's fine.

We can no longer eat or drink anything. Neil wants everything we have. And so far he's not really refusing anything. So we're mostly on finger foods, even at daycare. I have the pouches that I give him if we're out somewhere and don't order off a menu for him (which we do most of the time now if we eat out). The pouches are just a lot easier. And he just recently started holding them himself. He pushes my hand away if I try to "help" by squeezing the food up so he gets all of it. His favorite foods seem to be kiwi, banana, avocado, and apples. He also really likes chicken and eggs. And sometimes we give him "cookies" for dessert. Cookies are actually animal crackers, and we give him one to two of those but not every meal or every day. He lights up when we ask if he wants a cookie though.

I tried to cut out my one pump session at work and I'm having a really hard time doing that. I have gotten very uncomfortable a few times. So for now I'm using that as my lunch and not really telling people I'm still doing it. After the baby hits a year, the laws don't protect you anymore. ;) So I am pumping/nursing in the morning (depending on if it's a workday or the weekend). I pump/nurse mid-day. Neil gets a bottle mid-afternoon. Then I nurse at 5pm and then again at bedtime. I'm going to start making sure he eats solid food before nursing/bottle and hopefully that will help me wean down. BUT, he still seems to really want to nurse so I'm not going to cut him off completely. (I know a lot of people are going to think that's weird so I'll probably not make a point of saying it to people but I also won't hide it if it comes up.)

Neil is talking up a storm. I can't understand a lot of what he says but sometimes I can figure it out based on what he's pointing at. He calls fish "pout" or "pout pout" (from a book Dave reads to him with the pout pout fish). Cats are either "Tigger" or "kitty." He says banana (ba), ball (ba), truck, boat... those are just some of the words I've heard the last few days. He says a lot more. If I don't understand what he's saying and can't figure it out, I try to respond and just say something like "Oh really". He also knows some sign language, which will hopefully help keep him from getting frustrated that we don't understand what he's trying to say. Oh and for Dave's benefit, he might also be saying "Batman" (ba) as well. If you ask where Batman is, he does go get his little Batman stuffed animal, saying ba as he goes.

Sleeping is a bit weird. Neil sleeps about 11 hours at night. Then he takes 1-3 naps during the day. The consistent nap is the early afternoon one. At home on the weekends he always takes an early morning nap, about an hour after he wakes up. But that one seems to be dropping at daycare. And then he almost always naps at 5 when I nurse him after work. That honestly is my favorite part of the day. I hold him as he sleeps. It doesn't last long but I love snuggling with him.

At daycare, when they hit one year they are not allowed to be in a crib/pack-n-play anymore. So they've been working Neil up to sleeping on a mat gradually. It turns out he sleep crawls. (This explains a lot at night- we do hear weird noises from his nursery at times.) He apparently crawls around but is still asleep. I haven't seen this myself yet.

And I have to brag music wise! I think Neil recognizes songs to some extent! Whenever I sing Bingo, he starts clapping. It came on, on a new toy we got him for Christmas. And I didn't even notice. I looked up and he was clapping, and I wondered why, and then realized what was being played (without words). Proud mommy moment there. :)

Some stats that I haven't typically included (this is for you, Colleen, when you get here, ha!):
Size 3 diapers
Size 12 month clothing, and we started using some 18 month sized Gerber pajamas. I think he could still fit 9-12 sized clothes but we have enough 12 month clothing that we just gravitated towards that.
Weight 20 lb 6.4 oz
Height 3'