Twelve.months.old. How can it be? My baby is a year old (already? finally?)! While I'm getting teary over our last little one turning one year, Eric is jumping for joy that soon he'll be walking, running, and playing baseball (okay, maybe not soon). It's pretty crazy to think about the fact that it was entire year ago that I was dying to get this kid out of me. Suffering from miserable heart burn and prodromal labor, I could not wait to get the real thing underway. And, then, as it always does, real labor began, and we finally got to meet our little boy.
The other night, a friend was asking for some advice about her one month old, and so I went looking through some of my old blog posts to see what Reece was up to at that age. Pretty soon, I was reading through all of the monthly updates (and not at all focused on giving advice to my friend!) and getting emotional thinking about how much has changed and how big my baby is now. I feel like this has been the fastest year yet! Do they continue to go by faster as you age? Is that it? Or is it the fact that this was the first year of our last baby? I don't know.
This kid, though. He's been a handful lately; it seems that he's figured out that whole whining thing, and he's got it down. There's been a lot of "follow mom around and bounce on my heels until she picks me up" going on where there used to be a lot more "I can hang out here with these toys or just pull all of this stuff out of the drawer while you do that, Mom." It's a phase, I'm hoping. I can't really say what's causing it, either. He has started using his one sign--"more"--to let me know when he really wants something, whether it's milk, a snack, or a ball that's stuck under the table. He's figured out that the sign tells me he needs something, and he's willing to use it for anything now!
Nonetheless, we've made it. Through all of the many phases of the first year. As I was writing that message to my friend, I couldn't help but think I'm so glad that we're past that. Her daughter is a month old, so they're still building up to the six week cranky stage. Man, that was rough; I'll take a little whining alongside a whole lot of laughing, playing, and smiling over that any day!
Although, let's be honest. He's still not sleeping very well. I'm willing to admit that I think I held some pride in the fact that I "trained" my first two children to sleep well. The first few months with Kennedy were rough, but we put in a lot of work, and it paid off. She slept well in her crib from what I remember after about 4 months. Now I'll admit that I don't remember all of the details (another friend referred to it as "divine amnesia"), but I swear Cade slept well from day one. But not Reece. I've tried everything I tried with the other kids. I've followed all of the rules (though there probably is one about not changing time zones in the first year or something); I've tried all of the tricks. The kid just doesn't sleep well, reliably. A night or two a week where he sleeps straight through. A whole lot of nights where he wakes up a couple of times. Usually one really bad night a week. That's pretty much what we can count on with this kid. His napping is still a bit erratic. We're doing well if he takes one 45 minute nap and one 90 minute nap, but it's not happening with any consistency lately.
He certainly can eat with the best of them, though. That was not a trait that Kennedy possessed until she was about...six? seven? haha! This week alone he's had Korean BBQ (beef, pork, pickled radishes, kimchi pancake), Thai food (pad thai, chicken satay, rice, he skips spicy stuff!), roasted tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette, and lentil soup. I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten, but that's the gist. He loves pesto (thankfully, since everyone else does too!) and anything covered in it, too. His favorites are still cheese, olives, tomatoes, and any kind of fruit. He is starting to get a little more wary of my fingers, though. He used to trust me completely, and open his mouth wide for anything I was trying to put in it, but it's starting to make him a little nervous, I think! He's still downing plenty of milk, and I still haven't put any more effort into making the switch to cups, other than trying it every few days. I think we're going to have to go cold turkey on that.
As far as his movement goes, not much as changed. As you can see from these pictures, he's still as quick as ever. Even after I put him in the basket, it was still a challenge to get a picture of him with all of the letters in the proper order standing up. At least I was able to contain to one area for awhile with these fun new toys! (And yes, there were some hilarious outtakes from this session. He did manage to fall out of the basket in his urgency to reach the "E." He was also quite upset when he had put all of the letters back in the basket and couldn't reach them again, as in the photo below.) He's still a ways of from walking, though, just like his older siblings. I'm hoping that he waits until about 14 months, as they did. He only takes one step when we hold his hands, but he's getting faster at cruising around the furniture. This week he started letting go of the furniture and just standing for a second or two at a time, so he's thinking about it.
Based on the "subtract my weight from our weight" method, he weighs about 23 pounds; that is huge compared to Kennedy and Cade, but pretty normal for this age, I think. We obviously haven't been to his one year appointment yet, but I'm not sure that everyone else thinks he's as chunky as we do. Kennedy was 14 or 15 months before she hit the 20 pound mark, and we had to move her out of the infant carrier. We switched this guy out when we got to the States, so no new milestone at this point, as I don't plan to turn him around to face forward anytime soon. Too many crazy drivers in Seoul! The nine month clothes are officially too small, and he's comfortably in 12 month clothes now.
And, of course, if you happen to be in Seoul on Sunday, you're all invited to come celebrate our little pumpkin! We'll be missing our friends and family on that day, but we're so grateful for all of our new friends that are here to celebrate with us...I still can't quite picture our apartment with 30 people in it, so we'll see how it goes!
Happy first birthday to our baby boy! We're so excited to watch you grow up into the wonderful little man we know you'll be. We're so grateful that God gave us you!
The other night, a friend was asking for some advice about her one month old, and so I went looking through some of my old blog posts to see what Reece was up to at that age. Pretty soon, I was reading through all of the monthly updates (and not at all focused on giving advice to my friend!) and getting emotional thinking about how much has changed and how big my baby is now. I feel like this has been the fastest year yet! Do they continue to go by faster as you age? Is that it? Or is it the fact that this was the first year of our last baby? I don't know.
This kid, though. He's been a handful lately; it seems that he's figured out that whole whining thing, and he's got it down. There's been a lot of "follow mom around and bounce on my heels until she picks me up" going on where there used to be a lot more "I can hang out here with these toys or just pull all of this stuff out of the drawer while you do that, Mom." It's a phase, I'm hoping. I can't really say what's causing it, either. He has started using his one sign--"more"--to let me know when he really wants something, whether it's milk, a snack, or a ball that's stuck under the table. He's figured out that the sign tells me he needs something, and he's willing to use it for anything now!
Nonetheless, we've made it. Through all of the many phases of the first year. As I was writing that message to my friend, I couldn't help but think I'm so glad that we're past that. Her daughter is a month old, so they're still building up to the six week cranky stage. Man, that was rough; I'll take a little whining alongside a whole lot of laughing, playing, and smiling over that any day!
Although, let's be honest. He's still not sleeping very well. I'm willing to admit that I think I held some pride in the fact that I "trained" my first two children to sleep well. The first few months with Kennedy were rough, but we put in a lot of work, and it paid off. She slept well in her crib from what I remember after about 4 months. Now I'll admit that I don't remember all of the details (another friend referred to it as "divine amnesia"), but I swear Cade slept well from day one. But not Reece. I've tried everything I tried with the other kids. I've followed all of the rules (though there probably is one about not changing time zones in the first year or something); I've tried all of the tricks. The kid just doesn't sleep well, reliably. A night or two a week where he sleeps straight through. A whole lot of nights where he wakes up a couple of times. Usually one really bad night a week. That's pretty much what we can count on with this kid. His napping is still a bit erratic. We're doing well if he takes one 45 minute nap and one 90 minute nap, but it's not happening with any consistency lately.
He certainly can eat with the best of them, though. That was not a trait that Kennedy possessed until she was about...six? seven? haha! This week alone he's had Korean BBQ (beef, pork, pickled radishes, kimchi pancake), Thai food (pad thai, chicken satay, rice, he skips spicy stuff!), roasted tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette, and lentil soup. I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten, but that's the gist. He loves pesto (thankfully, since everyone else does too!) and anything covered in it, too. His favorites are still cheese, olives, tomatoes, and any kind of fruit. He is starting to get a little more wary of my fingers, though. He used to trust me completely, and open his mouth wide for anything I was trying to put in it, but it's starting to make him a little nervous, I think! He's still downing plenty of milk, and I still haven't put any more effort into making the switch to cups, other than trying it every few days. I think we're going to have to go cold turkey on that.
As far as his movement goes, not much as changed. As you can see from these pictures, he's still as quick as ever. Even after I put him in the basket, it was still a challenge to get a picture of him with all of the letters in the proper order standing up. At least I was able to contain to one area for awhile with these fun new toys! (And yes, there were some hilarious outtakes from this session. He did manage to fall out of the basket in his urgency to reach the "E." He was also quite upset when he had put all of the letters back in the basket and couldn't reach them again, as in the photo below.) He's still a ways of from walking, though, just like his older siblings. I'm hoping that he waits until about 14 months, as they did. He only takes one step when we hold his hands, but he's getting faster at cruising around the furniture. This week he started letting go of the furniture and just standing for a second or two at a time, so he's thinking about it.
Based on the "subtract my weight from our weight" method, he weighs about 23 pounds; that is huge compared to Kennedy and Cade, but pretty normal for this age, I think. We obviously haven't been to his one year appointment yet, but I'm not sure that everyone else thinks he's as chunky as we do. Kennedy was 14 or 15 months before she hit the 20 pound mark, and we had to move her out of the infant carrier. We switched this guy out when we got to the States, so no new milestone at this point, as I don't plan to turn him around to face forward anytime soon. Too many crazy drivers in Seoul! The nine month clothes are officially too small, and he's comfortably in 12 month clothes now.
And, of course, if you happen to be in Seoul on Sunday, you're all invited to come celebrate our little pumpkin! We'll be missing our friends and family on that day, but we're so grateful for all of our new friends that are here to celebrate with us...I still can't quite picture our apartment with 30 people in it, so we'll see how it goes!
Happy first birthday to our baby boy! We're so excited to watch you grow up into the wonderful little man we know you'll be. We're so grateful that God gave us you!
