First of all - 13 months. Wow. I remember when Julian turned 6 or 7 months and started to crawl, I thought to myself "THIS is the perfect age!" Well, until the next month anyhow, when I was convinced THAT was the perfect age. I guess I thought (worried) somewhere in the back of my mind that he would hit a year old and all of that would change. Instead of exciting milestones, we'd be starting the inevitable slide down that slippery slope to the terrible twos - our little baby suddenly gone and a total stranger in his place. Well, I'm happy to report that I was totally wrong. THIS is the perfect age. On the cusp of true toddlerhood - not quite a baby, but no terrible two either. Full of personality, of curiosity, soaking up knowledge and showing us bits of his humor and personality every day. It's been like watching a little flower bloom. Every day he learns something new! He's also developing relationships, which is wonderful. He knows and recognizes those he sees the most, and has definitely been bonding with Mommy and Daddy more and more these days. He's still not much of a talker, but he calls me "Mama" or "Mommm" and Eddie "Dada" or "DA DA DA DA." He can now sign the word 'milk' and he gets SO excited when we cheer for him! He even uses it to ask for milk occasionally (and sometimes for a nap, and most of the time just because.) If you ask him what a sheep says, he'll say "BAAA" or "BAABAA" and will attempt to moo if you really prod him (it ends up being more like "Mmmmm"). Hmm, what else? He knows where his head is (and sometimes ears - on top of nose and belly button which he's been doing well with), and will signal that he wants to sing "head, shoulders, knees and toes" by touching his head and then clapping for himself. Oh - and he LOVES to dance. Give him a beat - even just clapping or drumming your hands on the floor, and he can't resist bouncing to it. It's cute enough to change my mood instantly when I'm having a down day. He's absolutely obsessed with balls and balloons. Everything is a ball or a balloon. If it's round - it's a ball, and you can't convince him otherwise. Doesn't matter if it's an orange or a water tower - it's a ball. His favorite past time (aside from playing with balls and balloons), is to take rides with us on the golf cart and go see the orange 'balls' that mark the high power lines. He can see them from a mile away - the kid's got some eyesight on him! He's even taken a liking to a (quite sizeable) watermelon that Eddie brought home. He rolls it around the floor, shoves it into various hiding places and puts it with his other toy balls.
As for other new skills - he's learned how to (FINALLY) blow kisses and will even give out occasional wet, open-mouthed REAL kisses - something I've been looking forward to since he day he was born. You have to be careful though as it can quickly turn into a bite (just ask Grandma.) I'm sure he thinks he's being sweet, but he's got 8 teeth and he knows how to use them! Speaking of teeth...what a roller coaster! Two molars barely coming in and I'm sure the other two are just around the corner. Along with all these wonderful personality changes and mental growth spurts have come some down sides too, of course. He is now SO much better at throwing tantrums. He's pretty good about not throwing them 24/7, but when he's tired and he's teething and you won't let him chew on power cords or won't let him yank the cat's tail, all hell breaks loose. For the most part though, he's been a trooper. Overnight is a whole other story - but the daytimes have been bearable with the exception of naps taking a major hit. Some days it's one nap, some days it's two, you never know what to expect or how long they'll last!
As for walking, J took his first couple of unassisted steps right around his first birthday, and has been taking his sweet time figuring out the rest ever since. He's now up to about 7 - 8 steps at a time, and they are much slower and more balanced than those early steps. I can see him improving daily, but he still seems pretty content with crawling. He's always been a super fast little scooter, and I think he defaults to that when he really wants to get somewhere (which is all the time). I have no doubt that he'll be walking in no time, so I'm cherishing the remaining crawling days for all they're worth. As it is, one of his favorite new hobbies is to reach up on tippy-toes and drop his toys over the gate/wall that surrounds the basement stairs. If you're not familiar with our home - those would be wrought-iron spiral stairs. Makes a LOVELY noise on the way down. I didn't realize just how much stuff he's been sneaking over the edge until I went down there the other day and found half his toys and play tools. Typical boy - obsessed with making a loud bang!
I think that pretty much covers the baby updates! His recent stats (at his 12 month appt, which was more like 12 months and 2 weeks) were:
weight: 23 lbs 10 oz
height: a little over 32 inches.
head circumference: heck if I remember.
We just purchased his first pair of Nike's yesterday - in a SIZE 6. The kid has huge feet!! (Gets it from me, I'm sure.) They've got some growing room in them, but 5's are pretty much out at this point. I don't think he's quite ready for the idea of wearing shoes full time, though. He's been extremely spoiled this summer and hasn't so much as even worn socks. When I do try to put his sandals on these days, they don't even make it 5 minutes. We may just have to implement some duct tape this winter.
Pictures: Instead of uploading a boat load via the craploader that blogger uses, I made a few collages instead (because I'm oh so very crafty, tee hee!) You can click them to view them larger (you know you want to.)
Julian being - well - Julian. I love his expressions these days.
(note the kiss-blowing)
Daddy and Julian Part 1: Fun on the golf course (AKA the front/back yard we'll never have.) Our 'neighborhood' is unique, that's for sure...just one of the many perks!
Daddy and Julian part 2, which was really just on the way back to the house from Part 1:
(These are far from perfect I'm sure, but have to be some of my favorite photos EVER. The interaction between the two of them was so sweet, and I'm so happy to have caught that in some sort of almost pretty way.)
Daddy and Julian Part 3: Daddy gets sick of Mommy's pretend photo shoots (neighborhood perk #18 - lake views for pretend photo shoots.)
(More photos I absolutely adore)
You'll see I snuck myself in there too - I forced Eddie to take some pictures of me as I have a trillion of those two together and maybe 25 total of Julian and I together (and half of those are with me looking as swollen as a whale from the sheer work of bringing him into this world.) Eddie did a pretty good job!
Last but not least - a very short video of our little man working on his walking skills. Ignore the horrible, dark, grainy video. This was taken on MY camera, which is even worse than the video on our other camera, which is really terrible video to begin with. One of these days we'll get a real video recorder and will step out of the dark ages.
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