Thirteen months old

So glad to be done doing the weekly posts!  Hoping I can keep the monthly ones up until he's two.  Boy oh boy do we have our hands full with this little daredevil now.  He's realized he can use the art table chairs to help him get into things.  We're working on not standing on them, and he's doing better, but not perfect.  He still stands on them some and I've caught him standing on the art table and using them to climb onto the kitchen table.  Other things Calvin's been up to this month include:
- preferring to walk over crawl.  He usually still walks with his hands by his face for balance, but crawling is done.  He even will walk with things in his hands now too.
- allergy testing.  He's allergic to peanut and egg, but not dairy like we thought.
- waving - it's a small little wave, but he's getting the hang of it
- sleeping through the night!!!!  Only took us 12.5 months with this kiddo, which is one month less than our previous record.
- cutting teething like crazy
- climbing, climbing, climbing.  His music table...sure.  Caleb's stool in the bathroom...absolutely.  The ladder to Caleb's bed...not even a challenge.
- Climbing up and down stairs. He's a pro going up the stairs but may give me a heart attack going down. He waits until the last possible second to turn around when going down them.  He does pretty well going down them on his belly, but refuses to back into them and instead gets himself sitting right at the top of them. He hasn't tumbled yet, but I also don't let him get near them alone!

His typical daily schedule goes like this:
7:00-7:30 - wake up, immediately eat breakfast
8:30 - nurse
9:30 - some type of outing/errands
10:00 - snack
11:30 - lunch
12:30 - nurse/nap
2:30 - wake up
3:00 - snack
4:30-5:00 - cup of milk/snack while I cook dinner
5:30 - dinner
7:30 - snack, nurse, bedtime

Do you see a trend....this kid eats all the time!  He easily eats as much as Caleb at every meal and snack, and often more.  I took the kiddos to the children's museum and ordered three meals (two kids portions and one adult).  We ate it all and no one was stuffed.  When the whole family goes out to eat, we can still get by with three meals because Caleb often picks from the adult part of the menu and between the three of our meals, Calvin has some of all and is happy.  I made stuffed chicken last week and made four chicken breasts thinking the boys and I would eat the leftovers for lunch.  There wasn't even half a chicken breast left over.   We're nursing about three times a day, unless I'm gone for one of them and then he usually skips it and refuses the bottle.  I'm feeling about ready to be done, or at least ready to just do before bed.  I hit a wall when Caleb was almost 15 months old and just couldn't do it another second and just quit that day.  I think that's going to be the case for Calvin soon too.  We made it over a year and I'm happy with that, so no guilt for me if I suddenly decide one day soon that it's been long enough.  I don't think he will starve!

All ready for the Super Bowl

Climbing...

Just a little drawing

So happy to grabbed the pencils

Teeth brushing time

First trip to the children's museum

Painting

All smiles!

One year old!

And just like that, our little baby boy is one years old!  Here is what he's up to:

Teeth - 4
Weight and Height -- official stats from dr. will be in on Friday
Clothing size - 12-18 month
Nightly sleep - 1-2 wake-ups usually.  He did sleep through the night once this past week, so hopefully that is in our future!
Consecutive steps taken -- 10, but usually only 3-4
Favorite toys -- ring stacker, farm, remote
Favorite activities -- bath time, wrestling with big bro, eating
Words: mom, dad, all done
Favorite food:  Eats about anything, but loves fruit!

We are just so in love with this little boy and love learning more about his personality each day.  He is a pretty content little guy and happily plays alone when he's in familiar situations.  He's always been pretty overwhelmed in large groups of people and his first defense was to sleep.  The holidays and his birthday showed us his new defense is to cling to Mom like crazy.  He's such a happy, goofy little guy and has lots of smiles to share.  He cheeses pretty good for the camera (and the ladies behind us at church).

If I remember correctly, year 1-2 was one of my favorite stages with Caleb, so I'm really looking forward to this year with Calvin.  I remember it being such a year of discovery and curiosity.  I am a little fearful as climbing began this week and this little guy appears to be a bit of a daredevil!!!

51 weeks old

Someone has actually been cuddly this week. 

Well try as we might, Calvin has no interest in getting any better at walking.  He hasn't really taken any more stars and seems to get annoyed when I try to get him to, so I'm just going to leave him alone for a bit.

Calvin enjoyed Christmas with my side of the family this week and had a blast playing with his cousin Sarah.  He's a big fan of babies and was really gentle to her.

Working on some more teeth this week.  We had to give him Motrin last night to help him sleep.  He is NOT a fan of Motrin, so it was quite the feet to get it in him, but he did finally take it. Oh and by some teeth, I'm counting 4-6 trying to come through!  The top two front teeth for sure, but I'm pretty sure all four up top and two more on the bottom...

At the zoo checking out the dragons

50 weeks old

Calvin really seemed to enjoy his first Christmas. In fact, he refused to take his morning nap five out of the past seven days.  I'm still trying most days, but if he sleeps in, then I don't even try.  The last two nights he's slept in quite a bit, so he's still getting his 14-15 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.  Now, don't anyone read this as he is sleeping through the night, that of course is not the case.  I've told him one more week and we're going to work on not doing night time feedings.  Once we return from celebrating Christmas with my family, night weaning is the goal.

It's been a pretty busy week overall for Calvin. He's really working on walking.  He learned to stand up on his own unassisted from the ground.  He's done it a handful of times, but tries it a lot!  He took a series of 8-10 steps and keeps trying to take more.

Such a happy little guy. 

49 weeks old

This week could be titled..."anything can be a walker."  Calvin spent this week turning anything and everything in the house into something he could walk behind.  This included (but was not limited to): exercise ball, laundry basket, music table, tackling dummy, tubs of toys, kitchen chairs, and the list goes on and on.  He will often turn away from whatever he is using and attempt to walk to us, but he mostly takes one step and leans really far and falls over.  He's got a great attitude about it and gets up and tries again.

Calvin's got a top tooth coming through.  It looks so big!  It's barely broken through the gums and he's handling it pretty well.  Hopefully it doesn't cause him too much discomfort as we travel for Christmas.  We celebrated as a family yesterday and Calvin loved the boxes, wrapping paper, and the prime rib!

Loves his new car

Pretty excited about big brother's Legos.  Doesn't realize this means he's officially banned from his brother's room. 

48 weeks old

At 11 months old, here is what Calvin is up to:
- saying Mom and Dad!  Love hearing that sweet little sound.  Oh wait, not such a sweet little sound as he only yells it at us!  He's trying out some other words too and Caleb is a little upset that he hasn't said "Caleb" yet.
- cruising along furniture.  He's taken one step without holding on, but he's too scared to do more.
- climbing over everything.  He loves it when the couch cushions are on the floor so he can climb up and down over and over.  He also really likes to climb over the top of us, or up the stairs, or the ladder in his brother's room, or really anything.  I caught him in the dishwasher on Thursday.
-  trying some almond milk in his sippy cup with meals.  He's been a master at the straw cup for quite a while, but has taken to blowing bubbles and spitting it out, so we're trying out a sippy.  He's hysterical to watch as he tilts his head almost too far, but he's getting the hang of it.


Likes:
- his brother's toys
- pulling all the books off the shelf
- taking baths, or playing in water wherever he can find it



Dislikes:
- having his nose wiped
- holding still to get dressed
- getting wiped up after a meal

Working hard to get the sticker off

Investigating the sticker

Not a fan of Santa

Hanging out with Pops

Happy boy at supper

46 & 47 weeks old

Just as we suspected, Calvin thoroughly enjoyed his first Thanksgiving!  He loved all the food.  If I had to say a favorite, I would say turkey and dressing.  He slept pretty good while we were gone and loved playing with his cousin Sarah.  Calvin is a big fan of babies, especially ones he can get to so quickly!  We are trying to teach him how to touch gently and not pull hair.

Along the food lines, he is still a good eater, but we're having to be a bit sneakier with his plate.  For example, if he can see there is fruit to be had, he will whine for it and throw his other food around.  If he can't see the fruit, he will happily eat the food in front of him.  We've also started letting him drink some almond milk with dinner.

Sleep...we're getting there.  He's still up more than once a night most nights, but will go back to bed pretty quickly without nursing most of the time.  I do still nurse him once in the night.  And he's made good progress sleeping later!  This had led to a few days with only one nap, but thankfully on those days it's a pretty long nap.  A couple of days he even slept until almost 8 AM.  

He's discovered the Christmas tree, but is really doing a nice job of leaving it alone.  We even have presents under it that he hasn't touched!  Hope he will keep that up. 

He's getting steadier on his feet and can stand on his own for a few seconds at a time.  He has some interest in trying to walk, but he's pretty fast at crawling, so he's not in too big of a hurry to give up crawling.

Touch past couple of weeks for spills, tumbles, and bumps.  Calvin dove head first into an empty bath tub twice this past week.  Fortunately he wasn't hurt at all either time.  Maybe he's part cat as he landed on all fours both time.  He also fell and bit into his top lip twice this week, and if that wasn't enough blood, he got smacked in the face with a fire truck and got a bloody nose!  He's pretty tough and a few minutes of snuggling was all he needed to calm down and be able to play again.

Excited to be all bundled up!

Brothers! 

Playing with Sarah

Not too excited to be outside all bundled up!

Playing with Liz

Tried some outside pictures for the Christmas card.  Didn't work out too well since he was so distracted by the snow.