13 months!

13 months old!!! Wow, its hard to believe. Its been awhile since I talked about all of his new tricks and such, so I thought I'd do a 13 month update...

This picture shows it all. He LOVES his bookshelf, and he especially loves to drag everything off and throw it on the floor! He will grab a book, sit down, and then start saying "uh uh uh uh", which, when translated, means "please read me this book Mommy"...er, actually, maybe a more exact translation would be "read me this book NOW!" haha. And once you've read that book 7 or 8 times he will go grab another, and then another, and then another...the boy loves books! And I couldn't be happier about it, I think its awesome.

We took him to the doctor this week for his 1 year appointment, and these are his stats:

weight: 19.4 lbs (5th percentile)

height: 28 1/2 inches (5th percentile)

head circumference: can't remember the measurement, but I do remember he was in the 95th percentile! Does this seem disproportionate to anyone else??? haha. He doesn't look weird when I look at him! The doctor did laugh and say "maybe that's why he's having a hard time balancing to walk!" haha. Just so everyone knows, this little quirk runs in my family and we aren't worried. My precious neice and nephew have been the exact same way. It will all even out one day :)

Animal noises: Ok, we've got the puppy-dog down for sure, the tiger and lion are pretty good, and he does something very interesting when you ask him what a rooster says. I don't think it can go on the list yet, but he's working on it.

Words: He is a professional bye-bye sayer! He has learned that saying bye-bye at certain times (like, for instance, when getting out of a crowded elevator) gets him a huge reaction, so he says it all the time! Its so cute, and the people here just LOVE it. He brings joy to so many people. He also says "mama" and "dada" and understands what they mean, and he can kind of say "up" and "more". He understands "ball", but it comes out as "ba", but I think it counts :)

And, I have some big news...

Drumroll.....

He took his first official steps today!!!! There have been a couple of times where he has taken some steps on his own, but they were kind of stumbly-steps in between holding my hand and Daniels hand. They may count, but today for the first time he let go of what he was holding on to and took 3 steps, all on his own. It was AMAZING. I wanted to burst with excitement! He is well on his way to joining the bi-ped community!

Lets see, what else? He's eating a lot of different foods. He loves purple grapes, bananas, bread with jelly on it, noodles, watermelon. He doesn't like peanut butter or cheese, but he LOVES broccoli! I'm a lucky mama!

He is still taking 2 naps each day (and we are going to keep it this way for as loooooooong as possible), one mid-morning for about an hour and 15 minutes and then another one mid-afternoon for about 2 hours. He goes to bed by 8 each night and it normally up by 6:45ish. He's a GREAT sleeper at night, he hardly ever wakes up.

Oh, and some more new things. He's cutting his first 2 molars! We have been having some behavioral issues lately, and I think this might be one of the reasons, poor thing. We think he is also cutting another tooth in the bottom front. Including those 3 that takes us up to 9 teeth!

We have also started taking him down to the playground to play, and he can do more than I thought he could! He loves the slide (we stand on the side and hold on to him the whole way down) and he likes to crawl through the tunnels. Its really good for him I think, it helps him to use his abundant little-boy energy for good things rather than things like screaming at the top of his lungs in the house or trying to pull everything out of the cabinets in the kitchen :)

I'm beginning to see that my baby boy is quickly leaving and I now have a toddler in his place. How did it happen so fast? But yet, it seems like another lifetime when I think about bring him home from the hospital. Life is so interesting that way, it seems like you got to where you are so fast, but that certain stages in the past happened so long ago. Does that make sense?

Anyways, we are learning new things everyday about how to be parents (and what NOT to do). Each night after we put him down and close his door we both just breathe a sigh of exhaustion as we smile and talk about how precious he is.