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Sunday, May 8, 2016

One

I'm finally posting this on the day that Jack turns 13 months, but I figure since it's also Mother's Day, it's sort of symbolic. And also I'm a terrible blogger. (Ha, case in point. I had this scheduled to go out on Sunday. For some reason it didn't. This is my life right now.)

Jack is one. I can hardly believe it. I know every mom says that, but it's so crazy that just a year ago he was still inside my tummy. As he was playing with little plastic eggs this Easter, I remembered that last Easter I was a big round blob on my couch. Bobby and I didn't even travel to see my family like we always do because I was too uncomfortable. Even though I was still two weeks from my due date, Jack was born only four days later. Everything has felt like that recently. There's been so much of "Last year, this was my last day of work" (Apr 3), or "At this moment last year, my water broke in the hospital parking lot" (Apr 8, 4:30 p.m.) or "Last year, I took our tiny newborn to Bobby's first softball tournament of the season, and now he's running around on his own" (first weekend in May) or "Last year at my first sand volleyball game, I was so nervous to dive and split my stiches back open." (6 weeks ppd)

We had a small birthday party for Jack - just my parents and two of our close couple friends and their two kids. It was totally a Pinterest party with handmade decorations, a full themed buffet of delicious, homemade food, and a ton of fun party games! Just kidding...did you forget who's blog you're reading? We ordered Pizza Hut and I managed to scrounge together some chips and make boxed cupcakes. And Jack couldn't have been happier.


On to the stats:
Size
At his 12-month appointment, Jack was 23.9 pounds and 29.75 inches. He's in mostly 12 month clothes, occasionally some 9 month pants, since he has short legs. But his 12 months pjs are getting stretched to their limit, so we may be heading in the 18 month direction. He's in size 5 diapers, and can still manage to leak through overnight diapers and soak his jammies nightly. I don't complain too much, since he sleeps close to 12 hours a night now.

Sleep
Speaking of sleep - sleep is good! There was a point in my life where I thought I would never sleep again. At least not for any substantial length of time. I mean, I'm still tired a lot of the time, and when Bobby asked what I wanted for Mother's Day, I said (without hesitation) "a really long nap," but I get 7-8 hours most nights (if I go to bed at a decent hour). Jack is somewhere in the 2-1 nap transition. Like today, he slept until 8:30 a.m. So I put him down for his nap at 12:15 p.m. He babbled and rolled around in his crib til 12:30. He should get a couple hours in and make it til bedtime. BUT...often on one nap days, he needs a slightly earlier bedtime, which means he'll probably wake up earlier tomorrow morning, which means he'll need 2 naps...but on 2 naps, he has a later bedtime and tends to sleep in a little bit. So...you can see the endless circle. Obviously one solution would be to wake him up at the same time every morning. But on days that I work, it's kind of nice to be able to get ready without someone tugging on my leg the whole time. And on days I don't work, I can also sleep in a bit, or enjoy my breakfast by myself. So, we're in nap transition limbo. And for right now, it works. I'm a big fan of not fixing what isn't broken.

Movement
Jack's been walking completely on his own since 10ish months, and occasionally runs. Especially towards people's knee caps or collar bones (if sitting on the floor), which he loves to headbutt at full speed. I often get comments about how well he gets around for his age. He's the only one in our Baby and Me class that can walk - though he is a month or so older than all the other kids - but he was walking at their age.

Language
He has a handful of words: mama, dada, ball (bop), duck (dut), up, banana (nana), diaper, moo (when he sees a picture of a cow), bubbles, dog, and cottage cheese (this is my favorite. It's so cute. It's generally only one he'll repeat, not say on his own, and it comes out like "cot cheese" but it's freaking adorable). He'll also repeat "brush teeth" if we say it first. He'll also say "pu-pu-pu-pu" when he sees a picture of a pig, so I'm guessing that one is close. There may be a few more I'm forgetting, but those are the ones he uses consistently.

Likes
He loves books. While we play in the living room, he constantly picks up books and brings them over to me and climbs on my lap. It's very sweet and makes this English major very proud. My parents got him a quiet book for his birthday, so he loves to play with all the snaps and hooks on it. He can't do everything, but I love these and I think it's a toy that will grow with him (and maybe keep him quiet someday in the car/restaurants/church without the use of electronics? I can dream!).

Jack loves watching cars out the window and playing outside. We're hoping to fence in our backyard this summer, which would give him more freedom, and I wouldn't have to be right on top of him - trying to convince him not to run and grab the neighbors firepit or kick his ball into the street.

Growth
I did take monthly photos, but I never posted them here since I was nowhere near getting around to posting every month. So here's a big dump of all of them. I printed them and attached to scrapbook paper and hung on our wall above his high chair for Jack's birthday. Everyone loved looking at them, and they're actually still up. Eventually they should make their way into his baby book...but I'm about as good about updating that as I am at posting here. It's crazy to see how much he's grown and changed in the last year, and I kind of like to be able to look at little tiny Mr. Burns Jack every day.

(tapping fingers together) "Excellent"




 


This was the best I got this month. He was too enthralled in the bear.
 




On his first birthday. What a little boy - definitely not a baby anymore!
And since it's FINALLY spring here in Minnesota, our cherry tree has blossomed. That always calls for a photoshoot in this house.

That little tongue. He does EVERYTHING with his tongue out.

My two favorite boys