Max: One Year

On January 17, 2015 Max turned 1 year old. He had a pretty awesome first year of life, if I can speak for him. That must be what dadadadadababababa means, right? 

I can speak for us and say, we have had more fun than we ever imagined we would getting to know this little guy. It's been hard at times, but always worth it. 

It seems Max is learning new tricks almost daily now. He took his first real "steps" on January 5th, at 11.5 months. He spent that week walking back and forth between two people, and then started to walk between furniture (not surprisingly, his first walk to an inanimate object was walking to the couch to try to grab the remote, of course!) He is now walking for longer stretches and loving every second of it. Watching him walk is perhaps my favorite thing right now (or at least tied with watching him "dance" when music comes on). When he walks, he puts his arms out to balance himself, gets a HUGE smile on his face and plows towards his target. He is able to aim his walking a bit now, and correct if he starts to get off balance. He is still a bit unsteady though. This doesn't bother him, he LOVES to walk and is tremendously proud of himself whenever he makes it without falling. 

Eric and I both have different games we play with Max that he enjoys. Two of Max & Mom's favorites right now are: I stack the stacking cups, Max knocks them over and the second is, Max hands me something (like his doggie blanket), I stick it on my head, Max laughs hysterically and climbs up on me to pull it off my head. It's the simple things, I tell you. 

Eric and Max's favorite game is named "baby crane." In this game, Eric holds Max his arms while standing up. Max throws something on the ground (again, his doggie blanket is useful for many things). Eric says, "BABY CRANE!" and then flips Max over and lowers him to the ground where he then picks up the dropped blanket while squealing with delight. As soon as he is back up, he drops it again and the game continues. Max also enjoys the game where he tries to leap off the bed and Eric catches him in mid air. The child lives a pretty wild life for a 1 year old. 

Max has been sick a lot the past month, which has made him more cuddly than usual. We know he is really not feeling well when he lays his head on our chest and just sits still for a minute. But even when he wants to be held, he still reminds us he is a toddler now with his own mind. If he doesn't want food, he will throw it right on the floor. If he wants food, he will whine MAMAMAMAMAMAMA until I hurry up and get him the food! 

He understands language more and more every day. He knows who a lot of people are, including us, grandparents and aunts & uncles. He gives a smile of recognition for people he knows, which is the best thing ever. If we say, "doggie" (meaning his lovey dog blanket thing), "light" or "walk to [insert name]" he knows what we mean. He also knows the word "up" and will put up his arms when we say "up." One of my goals of the next month or so is to teach him some baby sign language so that he can tell me some things instead of whining. Also, he has been biting me when I'm holding him and he wants to get down so… yeah, that needs to stop. 

Physically, he is really growing! He is up to 21 pounds (45th percentile) and 30 inches (50th percentile- up from 25th at his last appointment!). A solidly average guy… big progress from the 5th percentile he was a year ago. It makes sense that he is growing because he loves food, almost everything. He still loves oatmeal and pears, yogurt, salmon, turkey, basically all meats mixed with veggies and fruit. He still loves his purees, but he also loves to eat mom and dad's food. He loves the chili Eric makes, basically all Chinese food, bread (just like mom and dad), and most recently he tried my bagel with peanut butter (and survived!) and loved that too. He is hit or miss on whether he will tolerate hard boiled eggs and bananas (not together) and he absolutely does NOT like anything with vinegar including pickles and ketchup. That's probably my fault :) 

I will be talking about his 1 year birthday party in a separate post since this one is getting a bit long :) 

Likes: being silly, trying to jump off the bed, climbing stairs (actually climbing anything), his favorite books (including Little Blue Truck, The I Love You Book, Where is the Green Sheep?, Goodnight Moon, the Carl books, Moo Baa La La La), practicing walking, watching videos of himself on our phones, watching other kids, opening and closing doors, throwing balls, clapping for himself, opening up all drawers and cabinets and taking everything out of them, all his toys, and of course his doggie. 

Dislikes: not being feed fast enough, when he shuts a door that he wants to open, cold milk, basically anything not going his way (sigh)

Eating: (see above for food preferences) In a routine of eating 3 solid meals a day, snacks 1-2 times per day, milk 4 times per day- currently 1 is real milk and 3 others are still nursing until I can get him to consistently drink milk from a cup, we will get there when we get there because all I care about is I'm DONE PUMPING. WOO! 

Sleeping: Goes to bed by 8ish, ideally sleeps until 6:30 but with all the sickness lately that has not been happening. He is still taking 2 naps a day around 9 am and 1:30-2pm, but some days he fights one or the other. I think he is in the very beginning stages of dropping to 1 nap. It might be awhile before that really happens though, who knows. 

Talking: Dada, Mum, Daddy, Baby, Puh Puh, Dod (no idea what this means, maybe dog? maybe nothing!) maybe Beep, lots of whining… ha ha

Thank you for reading all these updates for the last year. I did not keep up with my baby book (seriously, never wrote one single thing) so this is my one and only way to remember all these details. I will probably continue to do these but probably less often now that he is 1 :)