Category Archives: Letter to William

Dear William,

On May 8, 2013, you turned 17 months (or 1 year 5 months) old.

STATS/TEETH:  
You are weighing in at 31 pounds 9 ounces.   Your sizing in clothes (2T) and shoes (size 6) are still the same.  You had your first “tiny ear infection” that caused you to run a fever, and so you also had your first course of antibiotics this past month.  You were so miserable and we didn’t even know it.  You loved the flavoring of the medicine and would beg for more (video link).  After the course of antibiotics was done, your sleep magically cured itself, as did your appetite for food and nursing.  It’s official, though, you have weaned yourself from bottles and I put them away.  You no longer like them and prefer to drink mommy’s milk from a cup and water from either a cup or a straw.

No new teeth this past month, we’re just waiting for those canine teeth to cut through and your 2nd year molars to start making their descent.

NEW WORDS:  “Eat.”  “More.”  “Cereal.” “Nose.”  “B-ball” for basketball and when he sees a basketball hoop.  “That’s a ball.”  “Bye bye Daddy.” “Boo, Daddy!” “Star.” “Taco.” “Totally.” “Cool.” “Bus.” “Poop.” “Cup.” “Bowl.” “Up!” “There you go.”
SIGNS: “Eat.”  “More.” “Please.” “Bus.”
* You whispered for the first time this month.
* Music class started up again and you just love the class so much. You grin your way through the welcoming song and often will get up and stand right in front of the teacher and watch her with rapt attention.  Sometimes, instead of using instruments, you use your body as the instrument and clap your hands in time to the rhythm of the songs.
* You LOVE the Baby Signing Time DVDs.
* This month has been all about “DADDY!!”
Video Link  – he likes to eat!

NURSING/FOOD:
You had your first PB&J sandwich on 04/28/13, and loved it.  Of course, being able to eat peanuts opens up a whole new realm of foods for you.  Nursing has returned to normal… you now consistently nurse once or twice in the evening, nurse to sleep, you have a middle of the night nursing and nurse upon waking.  Daytime nursing is often quick, but always a long session before your nap.  Pumped milk consumption by you is still hit and miss, so your grandma has started mixing it into your oatmeal and yogurt.  Sometimes you’ll drink it from the cup, but you have made it very clear that you prefer to get your mommy’s milk directly from the source.

PB&J sandwich, peanut butter is sticky & yummy.

You do very well with a spoon and handling your food with it.  Most of the time you have it the right way and 95% of the time you’re able to get food on it by yourself.  I purchased you your own set of “toddler” silverware a couple days ago, and you used the spoon from that set  for the first time on your 17 month birthday and did not want let it go.  They fit your hand perfectly!  Since you were about a year old, we’ve been serving you your food in your own bowl or set on a plate… you like to “organize” your food, but most of the time you eat just fine off the your plate or bowl (as opposed to putting food on your tray).  You also continue to be a joy to take out to restaurants, and you enjoy eating… your father and I often end up waiting for YOU to be done so we can leave the restaurant.

SLEEP:
Once you started feeling better (thank you, antibiotics), you have returned to having solid, restful sleep.  No more coughing. No more stuffy nose.  No more ear infection pain.  Life is good.  Predictable.  Wake around 7am, nap around 12:30pm, bedtime around 7:30pm to 8pm.  We still nurse once in the early morning hours and I savor that time with you.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:
*Sea World on Saturday, 04/13.  Didn’t care for the Pets Rule show.  Oddly, didn’t see Shamu, but you loved Elmo.
*Church on Sunday, 04/14, got your first owie on your hand when you fell on the pavement, I didn’t even know you had hurt yourself… also, you spent a lot of time collecting trash instead of playing on the playground.
*Went up in the big orange balloon on 04/20, rode the carousel, and played at the playground there.  This is something we need to do more.
*Pool party on 04/21 with your cousins.  Lots of fun in the sun!
*Big Bear 04/27-04/28.  Loved the pancakes and enjoyed relaxing.
*Santa Ana Zoo 05/04.  We rode the choo-choo train!
*Pool Party on 05/04 with your cousins.  More fun in the sun.

        
PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
It is interesting to watch you interact with other children.  So far you seem to have a very non-confrontational way of handling situations.  If another kid grabs your toy or instrument, you will take a couple steps back and look at them with a “WTH?” expression.  One little girl tried to educate you on what you were supposed to do with a bouncy zebra at the playground (get on it and ride), but you just stood there, stared at her and when she finished her dissertation and demonstration, you walked up to it and pet it some more and poked it in the eye.  Those things are not for riding, they’re for petting.  You love speed bumps and love to push your Cozy Coupe over them again and again.   You don’t seem to be intimidated or afraid of other children, more that you’re fascinated and amused by them…oh, and you LOVE to watch people run.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:  How funny you are when we’re walking through Target, you see the signs of people smiling and you smile back at them.   How when you’re swinging in the backyard, you are obsessed with the pinwheels and want to hold them while you swing.  How when I’m pushing you in your Step 2 car, you like to put your foot down and wait for someone to notice… stop the car, ask you to put your foot up, and then you jerk it up… you do the same thing when in the WeeRide seat on the bicycle.  You love to grab bubble wrap and pop it and say, “Pop! Pop!” (Video link) How you love to sit in the bathtub and play.  I have to drain the water to inspire you to get out, and you sit there and wave at the water as it leaves, and then ask, “Where’d it go?”.  How you found the sponge thing we used to use for you when you were a newborn to lay you on and give you a bath… you think it’s a surfboard and stand on it.  How sometimes when I go to get you out of your crib, and say, “Come here!!” You throw yourself down on the mattress and “hide” in the corner with the biggest silly grin on your face. How you love to run in your room and hide behind the nursing chair.  You also love to turn your AngelCare monitor on, and then when the alarm goes off, your eyes get big and you say, “Ohhhh!  What’s that??”  You also love to get into things and when I come up behind you and ask what’s going on, you take a couple steps back and ask, “What’s that?”  How funny it was when you had pooped, and we were out of cloth wipes, so I got a paper towel and put warm water on it. You laid there, holding your ankles … let go long enough to sign “more.”  You liked the warm water wiping. haha  When I tell you the wipe is going to be cold, you smile and say, “brrrr!”

Feet out of WeeRide foot holders.

Surfing on newborn bath sponge

One of the best things about you is that you love to smile and laugh.  You love being able to communicate and I’ve always thought that you had an awesome sense of humor, even when I was pregnant with you.  Call me crazy, but even then it seemed you would do things just to make me laugh.  I see that in you as a constant part of who you are.  You will do something and then grin when I “get” your joke… and it’s the most awesome thing in the world to do something with the specific intent of making you laugh, and you “get” my jokes.  You love being tickled, and then you laugh and laugh, breathlessly you pause until your heart and breathing slow to normal and then you sign “more!!” vigorously…. and it all happens again.

Living life out loud happy, and then… more.  Times a million.  That’s you.

Love, Momma

Dear William,

On 04/08/2013 you turned 16 months (1 year 4 months) old.

You are weighing in at 31 pounds 3.5 ounces.  Wearing 2T or 24 month sizing.  You still fit in your Stride Rites that are sized 6EW, but it’s becoming more difficult to squeeze your feet into them.  We are buying new shoes in size 7.  I scored a pair of Etnies “Grow With Me” brand hightops in red (!!) for you at the resale shop for about $8, and am so happy with them.  I tried to buy you a pair of sandals in size 7, but went back later to have you try them on and your foot is so fat that I couldn’t get the velcro over the top of them.  Size 8 was too long, so we left without sandals for you.  I blame your huge feet on your father.

Teeth:  You have all four of your 1st molars, and are currently working on your canine teeth.  I believe they have been the cause of much of your discomfort and needy/clingy days lately.

New words this month:  “Knee.”  “No, not now.” “Coat.” “Choo-choo.” (train)  “Hat.” “Doggy.” “Daddy.” “Birdy” “Wa-wa.” (water) “Bubble.” “Bib.” “Eye.” (Usually accompanied by your finger in the eye.) “Bear” “Key or keys.” “Oh no!”  “Go?” (as in, Where did it go?) “Banana.” (the whole word) “Poop.” “Apple.” “Mail.”
Words you are trying to say: “Pear.” “Plum.” “Fish.”
Words you sign:  “Hat.” “Cat.” “More.” “Banana.” “Milk.”

As usual, the day after you turned 15 months old and I finished last month’s update letter, you did a Big Thing.  You do this to me ALL the time, by the way.  It’s like, OK, update done?  LET’S DO SOMETHING EPIC!  So there we were, driving down the road like a family in your father’s car.  You in your seat in the back, us up front, talking. You had your book and you were reading to us, and then I hear, “UH OH! There’s my toes.”  Clear as day.  Surprised, I turned around to look at you and sure enough, you had pulled off your sock (UH OH) and were affectionately looking at your toes.  But the epic part?  You said a sentence.  A full-on sentence.  Your toes have become one of your favorite toys in the world, especially when driving around, the socks come off and the toes appear.  Best of all, toes are one of those amazing toys that we shall call a “built-in toy” because they are attached to you.  They go with you everywhere you go.

This month you are all about kisses.  You kiss my hands, my arms, my cheek, my nose and if that’s not enough, you blow me kisses… even while you’re nursing.  You will bring your hand up to your mouth area and, while nursing, will make the sound of “Mmmmuah” and fling your hand out.  I just about died from the cute the first time you did that on March 28th.  You also kiss your daddy, both of your grandmas, your Froggy lovey, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, the stuffed giraffe your Godmother got you, oh, and pictures of cats.  But most of your kisses seem to be reserved just for me.

The other big thing this month has been the word “no.”  You say “no” and sometimes mean it, then there are other times when you’re saying it with a smirk on your face and you are just being silly.  For example:
We say, “Knock, knock.  Anybody home?”  You say, “No.”  But are smirking because you know it’s a joke.
We say, “Do you want more food?”  You say, “No.”  And then you push your food away.  Emphasized with,”No, no, no!!!”
I say, “Do you want more milk?”  You say, “No.”  And then nurse some more.

Things we’ve done this past month:  A mommy/son trip to California Land where i let you have your first bite of a churro, you also had your picture taken with Mater and sort of a drive-by picture with Lightning McQueen.  We attended a mommy group meet up where we watched jumping horses.  Your last winter session music class happened last week (spring classes start later this month), you now consistently put instruments away AND help others put theirs away . You continue to attend the library reading sessions.  We attended the annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner at your father’s church (aka Green Dinner).  We had a family egg hunt and play time with your cousins a week before Easter.  We also took a weekend trip to the mountains over Easter weekend.

You had your first cold this month, it started on March 10th and you still (as of today, April 8th) have a lingering cough that, despite the cough syrup we give you, is waking you up from your naps and your nighttime sleep.  We took you to the doctor on March 21st, because you were running a low grade fever, along with your cough, and we saw a new pediatrician whom I’m not real thrilled with.  But she said your ears were just fine and that we just have to ride out the cold with the measures I’ve already been using: Vick’s baby rub on the chest and feet, cough syrup, Advil or Tylenol if needed, cool mist humidifier and a Vick’s vaporizer plug-in scent warmer in your room.

On March 20th, you went on a bottle strike.  This is absolutely maddening for me, because here I am, pumping milk for you at work and you’re refusing to drink it. Instead preferring to hold out for me when I get home.  So I’ve weaned from four pump sessions (3 for you, 1 for donation) down to two pump sessions per day.  I moved my morning session to 10am (instead of 930am), moved the afternoon session to 2pm (instead of 3pm) and dropped the lunch time pumping one week and the following week I dropped the 10pm pump session I was doing for the preemies as I decided I need more sleep in my life.  I’m also clearing out the milk I’ve had in the deep freeze all these months and gave away 336 ounces to a mom who has a 4 week old baby with severe tongue tie.  The twins I was giving milk to are now 1 year old (as of 4/9), and their parents have transitioned them to other milk.

New things this month:  Your cousins, Huck and Milo, gave you a Step Two push car, which you love to sit in.  We also found a Cozy Coupe on Craigslist for cheap, so you have that, too, and you LOVE both of those cars.  We have Cozy Coupe races with the neighbor and it’s one of the most fun family/neighbor activities that we do to date.  Lots of competitive smack talk going on, and you grin the entire time!

Bath letters in the tub are new this month, you love them and “stick” them to the side for long periods of time.  Tub time is fun again, and sometimes I have to drain the water out of your tub, dry you off, put lotion on you… all while you’re finishing up your play time in the bath before I get you out for teeth brushing.  You’ve now made brown submarines in the tub 3 or 4 times, so I hurry to get the cleaning part done before I let you play, so that we can expeditiously wrap up your bath if we need to.  In fact, one night you farted in the tub and you looked at me and said, “Oh, wow!”  Then the second fart happened, and you looked at me with big eyes and queried, “What was THAT?”  haha  I think the gas if from the plums you’ve been eating.

You can spot a car or a ball from anywhere, miles away.  I never noticed it before, but you pointed out the cars on your bath towel to me one night.  Or the time you spotted a ball way down at the other end of our community and you were looking out your bedroom window.  Also, the pictures on the wall at Target have balls and friendly smiling people on them.  I know this because you yell “Ball” and grin at them as we pass through the store. I’m pretty sure if you were in space, you would look down and spot those things. You love them so much.

Your Grandma D. has been working with you with a writing sort of etch-a-sketch.  This has translated over to crayons and other writing utensils… you scribble (have for awhile now, I keep forgetting to mention it).  With the etch-a-sketch you also slide the eraser by yourself.

Things are coming together for you in your mind every minute… I tell you we need to wipe your nose, and you smile and hold your face up for me and then slowly move your head so your nose gets wiped by the boogie wipe I am holding out.  You now are “OK” with the Nose Frida again. I took your temperature with an ear scanning thermometer and you spent the next 15 minutes engaged with putting the tip of it in your ear and pressing the button, even successfully taking your temperature a handful of the times.

Things I want to remember about you this month:  How cute you are when you push your Cozy Coupe around the neighborhood, and how you love to get up on the curb and push it alongside you in the gutter.  How fascinated you are by any electronic gadget: calculators, alarm clocks, computers, and you go around and twist any knob or bottle top that you can… and I now have to check my alarm clocks to make sure you haven’t turned the volume off (so I don’t oversleep).  You’ve gotten the tops off of my lotion bottles a couple of times and rub lotion all over your arms.  You also managed to lock yourself in the master bathroom one morning this month by twisting the lock on the door, and then while I worked to get you out, you emptied the cabinet of all my feminine hygiene products!  The way you close your little fist and knock on bathroom doors.    How you twist your head up when you hear a plane overhead because you want to watch it fly.  How cute you are when we ask you where your hair, nose, mouth, belly, toes, knees, ears and… on a whim, I asked if you knew where your penis was, and sure enough, you did.  How suddenly a picture of us all at Sea World showed up on the refrigerator and we learned that you had pulled it out and were wandering around the house with it, looking at it… and when you have a bad day, instead of it making you happy, you get more upset.  Speaking of pictures, we have pictures above your  bed of people who love you, and you love to point at all the pictures and quiz us on who they are… except the one of us.  You point at me and say, “momma” and at your father and say “daddy” and at yourself and say “Baby”, and then you point at Grandma D. and grin from ear to ear.  I babyproofed my rolltop desk drawers with packing tape, and you walked right up to it and ripped the tape off and opened the drawer anyway.  You figured out how to yank the recycling cabinet hard enough to get it open, so we had to babyproof that, too.  One morning you looked up at the top of my desk and pointed.  I thought you wanted the water bottle that was up there, but no.  You were actually pointing at the boom box that has a CD of Sunday School songs.  You wanted to listen to that music while you ate your breakfast.  You know when you’re on your way to your music class, you grin the whole way there in the car and lean forward as we carry you in!  How one morning you looked in the mirror and noticed the car on your pajamas, you looked down at yourself and poked your butt out so you could see past your cute milk belly to get a better look and backed yourself right into the cabinet!  The way you notice the light coming on in the garage through the cat access door and have connected that to the fact that either your father or I have arrived home, so the first thing we see of you when we get home is you squatted down, looking at us through the cat door, with a huge grin on your face!

When we were trying to conceive you, I blew on thousands of dandelions and wished upon many falling stars.  I knew it never made a difference but figured accompanying my ten million prayers with a few wishes wouldn’t hurt anything.  The other night while I was swimming, a star fell and disintegrated right above me as I swam my backstroke.  I paused at the end of the pool as I stared at it in amazement, surprised at how close it was.  I tried very hard to come up with something to wish for, but there was nothing in my heart except your continued growth and health.  This past month, I have watched you run in the grass and stop suddenly to pick dandelions.  You purse your little lips and blow, and when iridescent whimsy scatters to the wind, I make a wish that someone else’s dreams can come true a thousand times over, just as mine have.

Love, Momma

Dear William,

On 03/08/2013, you turned 15 months (1 year and 3 months) old.

For your 14 month birthday I decided that I wanted to take you to CaliforniaLand.  (Disney changed the name of it to California Adventure Park in the last couple years, but it will always be CaliforniaLand to me.)  Your father was working and so it was just you and me.  The first stop we made once we were inside was a visit to their child care center… I love Disney’s attention to their littlest visitors with these oasises in the middle of their parks, providing a dedicated place for nursing moms and diaper changing centers.  We walked through Cars Land, had lunch at the gas station cafe, saw Tow Mater, and then headed back home for your nap.  A short and quick outing, but we manage to do so much.

Another weekend we went to Pretend City with my mommy group.  You saw Liam and Alex again, it’s been a few months.  Mostly you were obsessed with the Cozy Coupe car and pushing it around.  You also really enjoyed pushing the dump trucks around in the sand area.  Oh, and let’s not forget the water area.  And the crayons in the art center you discovered toward the end of our time there.  OK, fine, you just really enjoyed every single part of the outing, from the toys, to the interactive activities, to watching all the other hundreds of kids that were there that day.

Valentine’s Day was this past month, your second one.  We love Valentine’s Day in our house.  Something that we’ve started doing for every special occasion is to stamp your hand and footprints… you are SO cooperative and are fascinated by the process.

We also went up to our mountain cabin this past month over President’s Day weekend.  It was a couple days after a headlining manhunt ended in a fiery blaze, and while the loss of life that happened as a result of that manhunt wasn’t a good thing, we were grateful that we could enjoy our weekend away in safety.  It had recently snowed, so we let you walk around in the untouched front yard and make tracks, and your father built a snowman in the front yard.

Your obsession with the Cozy Coupe car started earlier that week when you saw our neighbor’s.  You somehow took possession of it from the neighbor boy and pushed that thing all over the place and then, when they had to go inside for dinner, you had a complete meltdown mourning the loss of the car you had just discovered and already loved so much.  Lucky you, your cousins no longer use theirs, so I’ve been told that you’ll be in ownership of one in the near future. I’m sure you’ll be far more thrilled about that than all those “silly” clothes they’ve given you (that *I* love so much). That’s fine, but I aspire to teach you to show gratitude for ALL things given to you, regardless of whether they are toys or not.

You got your 2nd haircut this past month, it was long overdue and it’s amazing how much older you look now just from the simple act of framing your face.

We went to Chick-Fil-A one night this week and you sat there and ate every bit of your grilled chicken nuggets.  Then we took you into the play area and you played and played and laughed and laughed, and you didn’t want to leave.  I really hope that you continue to be this happy and sweet natured throughout your life.  You are such a joy to be around.  People can’t help but smile at your antics when they’re around you.

This month you’re measuring (as best as I can tell) 32.5 inches tall, 30 pounds 5 ounces.  You are wearing 2T/24 month size clothing, some 3T shirts, 6 EW shoes, 2T-3T socks.  Your legs continue to be a size shorter than what your girth requires for pants/shorts, so that continues to mean rolled up pant legs for you, or shorts in size 3T that are the right waist size but about 2 inches to short to count as pants.

Weird nursing by you has brought a return of my menses.  Probably not something you wanted to know, but I write about it now because it is completely mind blowing to me that the day it returned (03/05/13) was the first day of the cycle two years ago that conceived you (03/05/11).

This month shall also be known as the month that your father landed a full time job.  It’s a temp-to-perm position, and that can sometimes be scary, but I’m a believer in it because that’s how I’ve found two of the best jobs I’ve had in my career.  So now your father and I leave at the same time in the mornings, which is kind of hard on you because you were used to having some one-on-one time with your father each morning… so your Grandma D. has been reading books to you after we leave.  Just this week I started making a bowl of my steel cut oatmeal for you to have in the mornings since you love it so much, and I guess that’s kind of my way of “sharing” some time with you even though I’m not there, because that’s our special thing we do on the weekends.

One of your favorite around-the-house activities is to throw your ball (or anything) and watch it bounce on the ground.  Sometimes your ball disappears under the couch, and you vocalize your displeasure at this and lay down on the ground and look under there.  The other day, I was searching for something I could use to reach it and pull it out, and I saw your blow-up Southwest plane.  So, I asked you to hand me your plane.  You looked at me, got up, went over to your Little People plane, picked it up and brought it to me with a HUGE smile on your face. I thanked you, kissed you and asked you to get me your other plane.  You smiled, got up, went over and brought me the Southwest plane, grinning the whole way.  I found that i was grinning, too.

Developments – New words in addition to the words that are constantly in your repertoire:  Toes; Piece (as in piece of apple); “go go go”, “cook cooks” for breakfast cookies.
Makes animal noises: cats meowing (and hissing), dogs barking, birds caw cawing, monkey sounds.
Understanding:  Belly, ear, toes, penis (ha ha), hat, plane… there are so many things you understand.
Makes the sign for: “banana,” “more,” “hat” and “milk”
Teeth:  Lower right 1st molar, 2/24/13.  As is the way with teething, some days are “off” and you’ll randomly start crying in pain and be fussy, and then the next day it’s as if nothing happened.
Food:   You love a lot of different types of food, the list is endless.   And we discover new “loves” all the time.   The newest “love” we’ve discovered, coinciding with the use of our food dehydrator is  dehydrated food.  I guess I should just start listing the food that you won’t eat, so…. of all the food in the world, you consistently refuse to eat the following things:  eggs and carrots. Sweet potatoes are hit and miss.

Sleep:  Awww, sleep.  My obsession.  You’ve been sleeping well, despite everything.  I think you’d like to sleep longer in the mornings, these days, probably until 7:30 if I didn’t need to wake you to nurse before I leave for work.  99% of the time this month it’s been me waking you in the mornings, which is certainly a change.  Some mornings I’ll nurse you and you never fully wake up, so I put you back in your bed and leave for work… and sometimes you’ve slept until 8:30am.  The thing is, though, you’re requiring about 5 hours, sometimes 5.5 hours of wake time between sleeps, that is making for some long days for you.

Things I want to remember:  How you get the hiccups when laughing when you’re overtired.  The way you say either “Hi!” or “Boo!” when I come into your room after you wake up from your night or nap sleep. How insistent you are that we nurse the second I get home from work, as if you haven’t been fed a single thing all day long.  How cute you are when you go clambering up the stairs to get your diaper changed or go take your bath.   How when you hear an airplane overhead, you lean your head way back and look, and when you find it in the sky you smile and watch it until it’s out of sight. The way you grab your book the second we get in the car and the rest of the car trip, we hear you “reading” us your book.  How you come around corners and say “boo.”  How amazing you think “toes” are, and you pull your sock off and endearingly say “toe.”  How much you love your shoes.  That sometimes you just get quiet and look off into space and think about things… I wonder what you think about.  How you talk yourself to sleep, you lay there, completely still and practice your vocabulary, sometimes 15 minutes of talking… and if you say one word once, it doesn’t mean you can’t say it another 10 times in a row with different intonations.  (I will get this on video one day.)  The way you’ve started kissing my hand or my cheek, or how you kissed me on the lips once night because you’d seen your father do it… I was completely shocked as lip kissing my child isn’t something I ever planned to do, but YOU kissed ME!

When we used the gym’s daycare last month, we were asked to complete an informational questionnaire about you, and it asked us your eye and hair color and your father and I stood there, staring at each other.  Brown hair, brown eyes is what we came up with.  But it seemed so … odd… to reduce you to that. But there was no place to explain how the sun or camera flash turns your hair red, or when you are outside your eyes are actually a golden color.  Or the smattering of freckles that have suddenly appeared over the left side of your nose this past month, or how ridiculously long your eyelashes are for a boy.  Or the way a tiny dimple teases to come out and play on your left cheek sometimes when you grin.  Or how just the thought of you make my heart smile, and I find myself laughing about something you said or did for days afterward.  There was nowhere to write about the beautiful, joyous spirit inside of you that tries to sparkle through your eyes, and sometimes, when you’re really, really happy, the way your little body just VIBRATES because the joy is so big and you are so little, and the sheer FORCE of your laughter is just too much to be contained within you!  When you were just a newborn baby, I used to look at you and try to imagine what you would look like as a toddler, a young boy or an adult… now I look at you and try to remember the newborn face that was there a moment ago, before I blinked.  I’ve been trying to stop blinking.

Love, Momma

Dear William,

On 02/08/2013 you turned 14 months (or 1 year 2 months) old.

You weigh 30 pounds 5.5  ounces, and are wearing size 24 month clothing.  I put an 18 month size onesie on you this past week and was horrified to discover that it no longer fits!  I’m finding that more and more we’re preferring to put regular shirts on you (instead of onesies), as they just seem to fit better.  Your torso continues to be quite long, and your legs shorter… meaning that if I put you in pants that fit your leg length you would wear 18 month size, however, your waist and thighs fit best in size 24 month pants… so you have to wear 24 month size pants, rolled up a bit, and no skinny jeans for you!  I went up a size in socks for you, so you’re now wearing 2T-3T socks.  You still fit in size 6EW shoes.  You are measuring (as best as I can tell) at 32″ tall, which explains why you are suddenly able to see the things your elephant trunk hands are grabbing way up there on the counters.

At 13 months 1 week, shortly after the last update, you discovered the moon.  Interestingly, it was a discovery you made during the day time (vs. night when the moon is brighter).  You looked up and there was the moon visible in the early afternoon hours.  You pointed and were told, “That’s the moon.”  Now, every time we’re outside during the day, you look up, smile and say, “Mmmmmnnnnnn.”   One morning this past month, we came downstairs and were headed outside.   Apparently, everyone but me has been consistent about putting shoes on you, because just as we were going out the door, you pointed at your shoes and said, “Shooooz!”  Oh, right.  You need your shoes, too!

We spent one Sunday morning this month with family, and your cousins.  You had a blast running around with them.  We also tried out our gym’s daycare to see how you liked it, based on the fact that you didn’t want to leave, cried when your father tried to remove you and ended up having to use blueberries to distract you. I would say it was a success and you likely would like to visit there again sometime.

We take you out to eat all the time and people are so impressed with your table manners.  You sit there like a big boy in your highchair, eating away on the food that we give you.   I continue to love having meal times with you.  You love to engage us in laughter while we’re eating, meal times have never been so much fun!  You haven’t really been into vegetables this month, not a big deal, I’m sure you’ll come back to them.  For now you seem to be really interested in fruits and various meats.  Although, Costco samples are always a huge hit with you.

You love to “read” your books, anywhere, anytime… in the car, on the changing table, in the middle of the floor.  There is no time that’s not a good time to read.  I couldn’t agree with you more about that, by the way.  One morning this past weekend, you tore a page out of one of your paper books. It was the first time you’ve ever done that. You proclaimed, “UH OHHHHH!” big and loud after you did it and looked really sad about it. I agreed with you that it was an “uh oh.” I left the page on the floor. Every single time you walked by it, you looked at it sadly and said “UH OH.” I bet you don’t do that again.

Your nursing has been irregular a few times this month.  One Saturday in particular is coming to mind… you would nurse one side just fine and then I would switch you to the other side and you would cry and cry.  Then you would stand in front of me and want to nurse, but then would cry when I tried to position you, several positions we tried.  You had been holding the back on your head a lot that day (you do that when you’re teething), and so finally, I just hugged you and then when you calmed down a bit, I tilted you back so I could see your upper gums.  There were two teeth that had just barely poked through the gums, you poor thing.  I dosed you with Tylenol, and we waited.  And then we tried again, and you were better.   Other times I’ll offer you a toy that you can examine, which will take your mind off the pain you’re feeling. Your “wake up” nursing, I’ve started changing your clothes between sides, and that seems to help.   Then there are days when nursing is complete and utter joy for both of us.  You clap when you get letdowns, you reach for my hand and pattycake it, you laugh at your hilariousness.  You hum and sing and talk to yourself when nursing.

There was about a week’s period of time this month that you were scared of baths.  Given how much you love baths, I decided to try a few different things.  Even though you were just sitting there enjoying your bath and out of nowhere you started crying and wanted out, I thought we would start by eliminating the most common issue, which is water in the face.  Thus, the first thing I did was start using a rinseless shampoo.  The next thing I did was buy you a couple new bath toys… a bathketball set (I didn’t type that with a lisp, that’s really how it’s spelled) and a bubble blower.  I also had your Grandma D. give you some play time in the tub sans water. One of those things, or all of them combined seemed to fix the problem.    Now when it’s bathtime, you don’t even run the hallways anymore, you just run straight to the tub and want in!  Tonight, in fact, the night of your 14 month birthday, we went upstairs and I told you we were going to run your bath.  You trotted ahead of me and opened the bathroom door, went in and waited expectantly by the tub for me to start running your bath water.

Sleep:  Your schedule lately has been really great.  You generally sleep well at nights and are taking decent naps.  Nowadays, a “short nap” for you is considered 1.5 hours.  An “average nap” is 2.5 hours.  This is a sweet spot.  On weekends we’re so busy as a family that often times I’ll push your nap time a little later so that you can stay out with us a little later.  Then you gradually revert back to the normal schedule — bedtime around 8pm, wake up at 630, and one nap in the middle of the day.  One night this past month, as usual for bed we nursed and you didn’t fall asleep as you normally do.  So I put you in your crib and rubbed your back.  You tolerated that for awhile, and finally you rolled to your side, waved at me and said, “Bye bye!”  Surprised, I kissed you goodnight and told you to have sweet dreams.  I turned to leave your room expecting you to protest, but instead you rolled back on your tummy and went to sleep.    As amazing as that night was, the next night you woke 2 hours after having been asleep and cried and cried, even your father couldn’t console you… the only person who could make it better was me.  Again, I was shocked.

Developments:  Your upper two “first molars” broke through the gums, your upper left one on 1/25/2013, your upper right one on 1/28/2013.  Your lower two “first molars” are well on their way.  You walk all the time now, preferring it over crawling.  You even run.  You hold our hand while walking.  You love to crawl up and down the stairs.

New words:  Moon.  Shoes.  Blueberries.  Repeating last word of sentence I say.    Your enunciation of “Hi” is much more clear this month, it used to sound like “haaaaaiiii” but now it’s very clear that you’re saying “Hi!”  I swear there are times when you say things, but I must be imagining it, like I’ll ask you if you’re ready to go, and you replied, “ready to go!”  I looked at your father in shock.  He just nodded.  Or I’ll ask you if you have something, and you’ll reply, “Yes!”  And sure enough, you do.  I asked you last night if you wanted a piece of banana, you held out your hand and replied, “piece nana?” The other day, your Grandma D. asked you where something had gone, you ran to your Lighting Ride-On, opened it’s “trunk” and pulled the item out that she wanted.  She was so surprised!  Last weekend, you picked up the tub cleaning brush and tried to brush your hair with it. I told you it was for the tub, so you turned and dropped it in the tub.  Child, this communication stuff with you is awesome.

Things I want to remember about you this month:  How when we’re dressing you, if you’re holding a toy, you’ve started automatically, without prompting, to switch the toy you’re holding to your hand when we get one hand through the sleeve.  How when you’re done being dressed I stand you up on the changing table and you reach to hug me.  The way you chew your food, with food all up front (because that’s where your teeth are), and you put your hand up there and hold the food in your mouth.  The way your little hand feels in mine when you are walking alongside of us.  The way you love to dance and bust a move to music.  You still love singing.   How you think taking your shoes off is just about the funniest thing to do when we’re driving down the road, the velcro ripping sound gives you away every time, as do your anticipatory giggles of us telling you, “WILLIAM, PUT YOUR SHOES BACK ON!” The way you giggle, your tongue between your teeth, as you follow the CATS around because you think they’re playing hide and seek with you.  The way you chase me around each evening saying “Booooooo” when I come into your sight.  How you reach for the ice and water dispenser on the freezer door and love to snap the handles.  How you yell “BALL!!” when we head into Target and how you sing “Ah Ah Ah” when we head into Walmart.

One of your favorite things these days is to go to the little playground within our community.  Your Grandma D. enjoys wheeling you there in the stroller and letting you out to walk around and examine your world that is full of puddles, snails, bugs and grass.  You go play in the dirt, splash puddles and roam around and explore, it makes me happy to hear of your adventures, because it reminds me of my childhood.  I used to make mud pancakes and serve them up regularly in our outside playhouse that my daddy built us. I splashed in puddles, inspected snails and “drove” junker cars. I played cowboys and Indians under the summer sun and splashed in a kiddie pool while my daddy streamed water warmed in the hose over us.  I put letters in the neighbor’s mailbox for their horses to read. Now, I’ve grown up to be a mommy of a little boy — you — so in that way, I feel well equipped for the job.  As much of a tomboy I was growing up, I was also very much a little girl who loved to play with baby dolls and Barbie dolls, paint my fingernails, put makeup on and treasure the fragility of flowers in bloom.  It is my hope to teach you about picking flowers and weaving them into jewelry, and how to paint fingernails, and let you watch me put makeup on, because I want you feel comfortable enough with yourself that you’ll be able to do that with your daughter someday.

Love, Momma

Dear William,

On January 8, 2013, you turned 13 months or 1 year and 1 month old.  Although when people ask how old you are, I simply say, “One year…”  It’s easier that way.  I learned to do that from my neighbor lady.

You weigh 29 pounds 2 ounces.  You still wear some 18 month size clothing, but are wearing mostly 24 month or 2T sizes.  Shoes: Infant 6 EW.  Coat/Jacket: 3T.   We use cloth diapers, and when you’re on my watch I find that I double-stuff the inserts.  Something is going on with you this week, you’ve had poop issues and did a couple poosplosions in cloth, which is nearly unheard of in the cloth diaper world.  Shocking!  It was on your father’s watch (thank you!!) and he said there was no diaper in the world that could have contained all that.  Anyway, moving on…

This past month we celebrated Christmas and New Year’s and spent lots of time with family.  You love your cousins and think they are incredibly funny, and in return, they really adore you.  This makes me incredibly happy and it’s like a dream come true for us, as parents, to watch you having such a good time with them.

Your birthday was such a busy day (a post dedicated to your birthday party is coming up), but I wanted to take you to Disneyland to celebrate it, so we ended up going a couple days after your birthday.  We rode on the monorail, which you loved because you weren’t strapped into anything and you could stand there pressed against the glass as you watched everything go by.  We also rode the carousel and visited the petting zoo!

We went to Sea World for the last day of 2012, and you saw the biggest black and white “CAT!” you’ve ever seen in your life.  I have to agree, that “cat” was pretty huge!  You also walked around in their Snow World.  It was pretty slippery and you would get your butt up and rock your weight to stand up, and then your butt would go back down. Rinse and repeat.  After laughing because it was so cute, I finally helped you stand and walk on the slippery stuff and you loved it.  You also really loved their big Christmas tree with all the BALLS on it.  You getting your nap is always a concern huge cause of stress for me, and after my mommy-fail at our Queen Mary outing, I decided to take you to the car and nurse you and just let you sleep on me.  With that strategy in place, I relaxed a bit and you ended up taking a 1.5  hour nap on my lap.  It’s been a long time since you’ve slept on me, and I savored every second of watching your beautiful face while you slept, feeling and watching your chest rising and falling, and hearing your little sighs.  I was thrilled to discover that you still smile and laugh in your sleep.

I love mealtimes with you.  We went out to dinner one night at a Mexican restaurant, a totally spontaneous thing.  We had been grocery shopping and as we walked out, I saw the Mexican place.  Since your father was working, it was just you and me.  Dinner with my son.  You sat there, sharing my meal with me, eating rice, beans and chicken.  I was unaware that the owner of the restaurant was watching us through the window, until he came out and offered to give you some more rice and beans because, as he said,  “He loves my rice and beans!!”  In the mornings when I’m home with you (like over the holiday break and weekends), I love eating my breakfast with you and you really enjoy sharing my steel cut oatmeal.  I try to ensure that you get one raisin with every bite of oatmeal, and you seem to appreciate my attention to this detail.

Library story time and Music Together classes have started back up this month after a holiday break.  Your music class is held in a big, open room with lots of space to roam.  You really enjoy walking around, your little legs as they step look like you’re pedaling a bicycle.  We worry about your roaming, but the teacher says that you’re still learning and just to let you roam.  The music follows you!  You love to watch and interact with the other kids there, too.  When the instrument free-time happens, you’re no longer dependent on crawling in the midst of everyone… now, you walk up to the teacher and stand there, first in line, waiting impatiently for the teacher to dump all the instruments out on the floor.  You wanted first dibs on the goods!   From observing the look on your face while you waited, I can see that we need to work on patience with you!  I can’t help but think back to the last series of classes when crawling was your main mode of transportation, and how there was another little boy who was a walker but he speed-crawled next to you and you two raced to the door, you giggling so hard about the fact that someone your size was crawling alongside of you!  I imagine you’ll giggle your way through running races now!

For New Year’s day, your father installed the WeeRide Kangaroo Bicycle seat on his bike; one of his Christmas presents from me.  He’d had a bicycle trailer on his wish list forever, but the reviews weren’t nearly as glowing on that as they were for the WeeRide.  Having now seen this in action, I can completely understand why.  Mounted on the center bar, you’re right up with us, hugged by a parent the entire ride.  We took you for a spin around the neighborhood and you immensely enjoyed being up with us where all the activity happens and you could see what was going on.

Developments:
Walking — You started taking independent steps on 11/27, and every day you would add more and more.  Now, you’re pretty much a full-on biped! I can put you down and you stand there independently (instead of folding to a sitting position), and as of January 1st, you toddle around about 95% of the time, and 5% of the time you crawl.  Now, at 13 months, crawling is pretty rare.  I have to tell you, I thought the crawling naked baby before bathtime was funny, but the walking naked baby before bathtime is absolutely hilarious!  Especially because you are obsessed with the big red Yoga ball that we keep in the bedroom.  I used to bounce you on that ball when you were a newborn to get you to go to sleep, now you think bouncing on that ball is hilarious (which is why I stopped doing it when you were around 4-5 months old).  It’s amazing how much a difference a month, or even a week, makes in your development. Last year, at one month old, you would lay on your back and smile  at the ceiling fan as it went round and round.

You are obsessed with opening and closing bedroom and bathroom doors. There is no containing you these days.  I get bathroom privacy by locking the door, and you stand outside of the door and jabber about why the door knob isn’t working, while you repeatedly jiggle the handle.  You also love to press the water and ice dispenser buttons on the refrigerator door, and have started spraying yourself in the face with it.  That makes me laugh.  You are so curious (nosey?), you like to see what’s on the counters and table and will stand on your tiptoes and peer over, while you reach your hand up there, looking for all the world like an elephant trunk, exploring to see what you can reach and pull down.  As much of a workout as your tiptoes get, I don’t doubt that you will be either a ballet dancer or a basketball player.  ha

I bought a stuffed Rudolph on clearance at Big Lots after Christmas.  You showed zero interest in it while we were shopping.  I got it home and stuck it on the back of the couch, not even realizing that it’s the exact size of our cats.  Well, now it’s your own personal Rudolph “CAT!”  It’s one of the first things you ask for every morning, and you carry it around with you, lay down on top of it, smile at it, drool on it.  Silly me, thinking it would be a cute Christmas decoration.

Talking — “Cat” was one of your first words, not surprising as we have 5 of them. Mama and Dada were right around the same time. “Ball” is a favorite word of yours. “Car” is another favorite. We all know about the “tater tot” video. haha Although I’m not sure that really counts because you have no clue what a tater tot is. “Bye Bye” combined with any of the above.  One  morning we were walking downstairs.   All the cats were lined up at the gate and as soon as they saw us, they beelined down the stairs ahead of us, and we followed a herd of tails down.  I thought you would say CAT!! as you usually do, but instead you waved at them and said “BYE BYE CATS!”  “Up” when you want up. “Nananana” is for banana and “pop” is popsicle, two of your favorite foods in the whole world. “Nana” with the milk sign is for nursing.  You greet people with “Haaaiiiiii” and say “K” when asked if something is “ok”… “wow” if something amazes you, like the Christmas tree or lights, and “Cool” if you like something. You practice these words regularly and will pop off and on while nursing to say them, and also when you wake up. Also, you understand far more than what you say, like shoes, jacket, froggy (your lovey), plane, etc., Things that are day-to-day or are in the books that you read. You will flip to pages in a book if I ask you to find something.  The morning of your 13 month birthday, you finished nursing and looked up at me and said, “Turt… turt.”  Knowing that your Grandma D. has a turtle and turtle is mentioned in your Quiet Loud book, I asked, “Turtle?”  You smiled and repeated, “Turtle.”  I finished the sentence, “Turtles are quiet!”  Then you said, “Cats” and hissed.  haha  Other things you say, “What’s this?,”  “What’s that?,” “Uh oh.”  You say, “Awww awww” to mimic the cawing sound of birds outside.  You also like to say a high-pitched “Ahhhh” when you know that the sound will echo. Waaawaaa (fake crying), Uh oh (timed perfectly with dropping something or when someone else drops something), Uh uh uh uh uh uhhhhh (timed with something you shouldn’t be doing).  In addition to the “milk” sign, you also sign “more” and “all done.” You do a whole lot of body language and pointing, which is also a form of communication. I feel like there are other things you say, but can’t remember them just now.  You seem to be very linguistic.

Teeth — Your 7th tooth, the upper left lateral incisor poked through on December 24th.  I laughed about that one, singing, “All he wants for Christmas is his 7th front tooth, his 7th front tooth…”  Your 8th tooth, the upper right lateral incisor poked through on January 9th.  It looks like your upper left cuspid tooth is following hot on their heels.

Despite all that teething, you continue to be a great sleeper.  The one nap schedule is working out well for you… except for Fridays, which is garbage truck day.  Ain’t no one in the neighborhood gets naps on Fridays.  If you’re actively teething, you sometimes have trouble falling asleep. Understandable, I think.  Because if I’m in pain, I have trouble falling asleep, too.  Usually, though, on nights like that, a ten minute cuddle session goes a long way toward easing you into dreamland.  Of the handful of times when you’ve had trouble falling asleep, there have been a couple of times when I get frustrated… I’m human after all and have a lot of things to do each evening before I get to go to bed.  But when you reach for me, and then relax against me, I remember how comforting it was to have my mommy hold me when I was little… and sometimes still to this day. The simple trust that you have that I’ll be there for you, and that my presence is reassuring and comforting to you, melts my frustration away.  Especially because there has never been a time recently when you’re not actively trying to go to sleep.  You try, oh, how you try.  And so, giving you a peaceful journey to sleep is my gift to you on those nights.

Exasperated and unable to sleep…

Food/Nourishment — you still nurse and you really seem to enjoy it.  You haven’t really cut any nursing sessions out of your schedule, although you’ve shortened a couple of them, or are preferring to block feed.  Your nursing hasn’t impacted the amount that I pump when I’m at work, so I know I have good and established supply.  Studies have shown that breastmilk is a living fluid and contains all the nutrients and vitamins you need, and so even if you don’t “eat” all that well, as long as you nurse, I have confidence that you will be perfectly nourished and hydrated.   Lately, your “solids” appetite has been off, and I’m attributing that to all these teeth you’re getting. That being said, though, food is not something I worry about with you.  You love food… you prefer turkey or chicken over other meats.  Broccoli, brussel sprouts, beans of any sort (kidney, green, etc.), peas, avocado, onions are favorite vegetables.  Potatoes and sweet potatoes are always good.  You haven’t found a fruit yet that you dislike.  Banana, apple, pear, oranges, mango… the list goes on and on.  The only thing I’ve found that you repeatedly and immediately spit out are carrots.  You don’t really seem to care much for eggs, either.  You like toast with butter, but French toast was a no go.  You like to load your spoon yourself, and think it’s great fun to get things on it and hurry it to your mouth.  You like the spoon to be right side up, and you actually get much of the food in your mouth.  We’ve added raisins to the portable snack list, along with Cheerios and bananas.  Those are things you’ll eat no matter what.

Things I want to remember about you this month:  How rapidly you went from crawling to walking, just a short month. The way you converse with us, so emphatically, and I swear it sounds just like you’re speaking some sort of foreign language (I blame your Grandma D., she’s trying to teach your Korean haha).  The way you moan and groan when you eat a food you like and how I know that’s how you’ve actually gotten into your mouth.  How you play games — playing patty-cake — you started doing this while nursing, patting against the palm of my hand, accompanied by nursing smiles, seriously, one of the cutest things ever.  You have an amazing sense of humor and I can’t help but remember even when you were in-utero, how funny you were.  When we picked up your 1 year pictures, I was holding you and the receipt they needed to find the order.  I set the receipt on the counter and you reached for it, but I didn’t want you to have it, so I turned it into a game of sliding it just out of your reach.  You started giggling and playing.  Or how when you have something and we ask, “May I see it?”  You will reach as if to hand it to us, and then pull it away just at the last second and laugh and laugh… PSYCH!!”  haha How determined and focused you are on things and how when you’re done focusing you turn around and smile at us with a great big “Haaaiiiii!”  The way you say “Ahhhh” when you know your voice will echo, like in the foyer of Walmart or the landing of our staircase.  The way you smile when I ask if you want to see your neighborhood before I open the shutters in the morning. The way your little legs look as you walk around, with your little fluff butt on top of them.  How nostalgic I was the first time you walked away from me, but then you turned around and grinned at me.  I couldn’t help but think how symbolic that was of how life with you will likely be from here on out… walking away but grinning back.

Love, Momma

Dear William,

On 12/06/2012 you turned 52 weeks old, and on 12/08/12, you turned one year old.

You weigh 28 pounds 1/2 ounce, are 31.5 inches tall.  You wear size 18-24 month clothing.  Your shoes are infant size 6 Extra Wide.  We use cloth diapers, and when you’re on my watch, I find that I double-stuff the inserts.  If we used disposable diapers, I would guess you would wear size 5.

You know what so many things are.  I’ve always believed that babies understand more than we (adults) think they do, and you are proving my theory as correct.  For example, your father and I were walking along with you in the stroller one evening.  We were talking to each other and one of the neighborhood cats crossed the street in front of us.  I said, “Oh, look, there’s that cat…”  You had been looking off to the side, but when I said that you looked back at us, then forward, and yelled “CAT!! CAT!!”  I routinely ask you get Froggy, and you will bend down, grab Froggy and stuff him in your mouth.  If I tell you to go read your books, you will crawl over and start pulling books off your bookshelf and flip through the pages.  To your favorite book rotation you have added a book with pictures of all sorts of different cars, and you proclaim for all to hear “CARRRR!  CARRRRR!” when you start “reading” it.  One night I asked you find mommy’s car, and you flipped to the page of red sports cars.  Smart kid.  If I ask you to go get your car or your ball, you will take off across the room searching for the appropriate object.  If we say, “Power to the  (insert whatever object you’re holding), you raise your hands in the air with a big smile.  If you’re eating and you get distracted, I will ask you if you’re eating your chicken (or whatever food you’re eating) and you look up startled and then start eating again.

New word(s) you say this week:  “Car.”  You are also learning to make the “L” sound with your tongue.  You have also figured out how to make a sound that sounds like you’re slurping the bottom of a glass with a straw, this sound is accomplished by making an “O” with your mouth and blowing while creasing the back of your tongue.  It’s a strange sound for you to have discovered how to make and you do it all the time.  You still use the word “nanananaaa” (banana) for any food that you REALLY like, although you seem to realize that it’s called something else.

You are taking steps more and more frequently.  You regularly take 5-6 steps, on 12/6 you took TWELVE in a row.  I was so shocked!  You’ll see somewhere you want to be and off you’ll go, usually side stepping, to the middle of the room and then you look around as if you’ve just realized that you’re in the middle of the ocean without a life jacket, and down you go on your well-padded bottom.  You have started lifting your legs when it’s time for a diaper change, which is immensely helpful.  When we lift you under your arms or hold your hands up, you take off running using us as your balance system, giggling the whole way.  If we pick you up from that, your little legs go 100 mph like a little frog who was running away from something.

We set up our Christmas tree this past week, and you are utterly fascinated by it.  It’s OK, I’m much older than you and I’ve seen it a few more times than you have, I’m still amazed at how beautiful it is.

I stayed home from work on your 52 week birthday to bake the cakes for your birthday party.  Since the theme for your party was wheels, I thought it’d be a good idea to bake a bunch of mini pineapple upside down bundt cakes and call them tractor wheels.

We are working on your table manners these days.  Somehow you got the notion in your head that if you don’t want a certain food, or if you’re done eating something, you throw it on the floor.  The eve of your year birthday, you were eating dinner and it looked like you were about to throw your food on the ground, so I held my hand out and told you to give it to me if you don’t want it.  You looked at me and placed the food you didn’t want in my hand.  I had lined up your food on the table edge, within your reach, and instead of pushing the food you didn’t want on the floor, you started picking the food you did want to eat and eating it instead.  Then you saw me picking the food from a bowl, and you reached for the bowl.  Just to see what you would do,  I let you have it… and you started picking from it, too.  This is progress.

Saturday was your birthday, and your birthday party was that afternoon.  You took a 2 hour nap and were ready to roll.  Literally, as the theme for your party was wheels.  We had a bouncy house for older kid entertainment.  For food, we had “Pinwheel” (Wrap) Sandwiches, Bicycle tires (pretzel rings), tractor tires (pineapple upside down bundt cakes), Spare tires (Oreos) and a bunch of other wheel themed food.  I made your smash cake from bananas and made banana flavored Cool Whip frosting with blue food coloring.  You loved the frosting and then flipped your entire cake upside down on the ground.  Awesome.  Even more awesome, you’ve had green poo for three days (so far, and counting) after.  Apparently blue frosting + breastmilk = green poo.

The night of your birthday you had the crappiest sleep I’ve ever seen, which if it had been a normal sugary cake, I would have been blamed the sugar, but I think it’s something else because I used very little sugar.  That combined with your weird nursing of late, I think it’s either teething or learning your new skill of walking, or maybe both combined.  Or it could be that you’ve had a lot going on lately.  You’ve become unpredictable with our 5pm  nursing, which is our “reconnect” nursing after I’ve been at work all day.  There are days at that nursing when you nurse for a minute or two, days when you refuse it completely, and then other days when you nurse for 30 minutes.   As with anything, time will tell, I suppose.

Things I want to remember about this week: How you think everything is a game!  Pulling papers out of my work bag — good times! How fast can you get to the stair before the gate gets shut in front of you?  Can you pull everything out of the cabinet and rearrange it?  How you love keeping the beat to music with shakers, and you test EVERYTHING to see if it makes a noise if shaken, and if it does you smile super big.  How you figured out how to open the fireplace gate AND pull open the glass doors, because you wanted to eat the charred wood inside… oh, and pulled your shirt half off in the process because you don’t like long sleeves and how unhappy you were with me when I took that burnt piece of wood away from you.  How when we walk through Costco and taste the samples, you now know that you’re allowed to taste them, too (usually) and look at us with expectation.  You do a lot of communication with body language and sounds these days.  How peek-a-boo is one of your favorite games to initiate, anywhere and everywhere is a possibility, nursing you hide behind your hand, Froggy, or whatever, around corners, behind the fireplace gate… hilarious to watch you initiate it and wait for us to notice. How fascinated you are with shoes and when you got your first “real” shoes in the mail this week, you examined them and then sat down on my lap to let me help you put them on your feet.  How adorable it is when you wake from your nap or in the morning, and sit there in your crib talking to Froggy, using all the sounds and words you know and then laugh at your own jokes.  The enormous smile you greet me with when I open the door to your room in the morning. The heart-meltingly sweet hug you give me in the mornings when I pull you out of your crib.

I’m typing this last part of your letter on your birthday.  You had your birthday party, and lots of people showed up to tell you how happy they are that you’ve been in their life for an entire year and wish you a happy birthday.

I nursed you to sleep tonight,  my newly 1 year old boy, and as I held you, I reflected on what it felt like to hold you in my arms for the first time one year ago, so small, and feel you tugging on my breasts for sustenance, and how for the first 7 months of your life, the only thing your body knew as food was the milk from my body. I stroked your one year old head, as I’ve done so often this past year and got so enwrapped in my thoughts and memories, that you nursed yourself into oblivion and dropped off my breast, slack jawed, your legs flopped off the edge of the chair and you snored quietly… and I sat there and continued to hold you close, unwilling to move on with the evening.

Nursing you has been such a journey, and such an enormous part of our relationship and as such, it’s something that warrants its own letter, which I’ve written and will finalize at some point.  I will share in this letter that the quiet time that we have together while you nurse has given me lots and lots of time to think this past year and reflect on a lot of things.  I’m grateful that I have a lot of nostalgia but no regrets.

Marrying your father was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.  Moving forward with our dream of having a child, and all the scary, scary decisions that entailed, and then, finally, holding you in our arms which validated that those choices were, without a doubt, the right ones, the best ones, we’ve ever made as a couple. Because the best thing in this world to us is to be able to say that we are your parents.  You are a gift to us.  You are a gift to this world.

Happy Birthday, Sweet William.

Love, Momma

Dear William,

This week on 11/29/2012, you turned 51 weeks or 11.72 months old.

This past week we had Thanksgiving, your first.  It was pretty special, because on Thanksgiving we’re supposed to focus on the good things in our lives — whatever things or people we find to be a blessing or an encouragement — and then we eat a bountiful feast with our loved ones.  We visited your father’s parent’s house.  All of your living grandparents were there, as well as your cousins, Huck and Milo.  You had a fantastic time playing with your cousins, and they acted as your own personal entertainment.  They danced for you, talked to you, chased you, even built you a fort out of the couch cushions!  You thought they were pretty funny and spent a lot of time either watching them, open mouthed, or laughing at them.   You were having such a good time!  The afternoon moved into the evening and the time we should have left to get you home for bed came and went, and I knew there would be a price to pay, likely in the form of a meltdown when we got home, and likely an additional night waking, but I let you stay up past your bedtime.  Both “prices to pay” came true, but after your 2nd wake up, you ended up sleeping until nearly 8:30am the next morning.  Shocking!

Some of our neighbors have put up Christmas lights, a lot of people start decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving.  Your father suggested we take you over so you could see the lights, we wanted to see what you thought before we made arrangements to walk through some extravagant neighborhoods in the month of December.  You looked, your eyes open wide and I could see the reflection of those Christmas lights in your eyes.  You smiled and said, “Wow.”  Just like that, you summarized what reporters try to say, using hundreds of words, about Christmas light displays.  I guess we’ll be going to those extravagant neighborhoods.

Foods:  Since you were 11.5 months, I decided to also let you partake in the Thanksgiving feast (with the exception of the really sugary foods) — just like the little human you are.  Over the months of eating, you’ve sampled most of the foods that were served, although a new one this week was cranberries.  You weren’t terribly fond of the surprising tartness of one of the berries, but as is usually the case, despite the scrunchy face you kept going back for more.  Also, this week, your father and I had buck-fitty hot dogs at Costco, since I refuse to let you eat that crap (ha), I let you instead have some raw onion pieces.  You juiced them, like you do most of your food, and I sat there all proud that my baby boy loves onions, just like his parents do.  I also froze a mix of bananas and plain Greek yogurt in smaller “rocketship” popsicle molds, instead of the bohemoth molds you’ve been eating from that I used last year for myself.  Fortunately, as I prefer you to hold your own food (nobody puts food in baby’s mouth but baby rule) these are more your size and so you can hold them all by yourself, which thrills me and thrills you even more.

In addition to the “regular” words and sounds you say, you added some new words this week:  “ball” and “up.”
Regular words and sounds:  Mama, Dadda, Cat, Pffft (hissing), Awwww Awwww (high pitched bird cawing), this (finger point), that (finger point), POP (popsicle), Nanananana (banana), Nana (milk sign) for nursing, Bye Bye (waving), Haaaaaiiii (hi), Waaawaaa (fake crying), Uh oh (timed perfectly with dropping something), Uh uh uh uh uh uhhhhh (timed with something you shouldn’t be doing).

Developments:  You are weighing in at 28 pounds 1/2 ounce, 31 inches tall.  You are wearing 18 month sizes, some 24 months.  Diaper stuffing, I mostly double stuff your diapers these days, especially since you’ve been loving nursing.  We measured you for shoes, and you wear an Infants size 6, Extra Wide.

Steps!  You are taking one step here, one step there, carefully and cautiously.  You took one step one night, then the next night you took 2.  The next night you took 3.  Working your way up in number, slowly but surely!  So exciting and so bittersweet all at the same time.  Then, last night, you took 5 little controlled baby steps, while saying “Ball! Ball!  Ballllll!”  Even timing your speaking with your steps, which makes me think that since you’re talking and walking that it should count for even more!   http://youtu.be/fBDOPmkpGIE

Bath time, you love naked crawling … one night this week, though, we let you loose for your naked crawling time, and you crawled up and down the hallway once, and then crawled right into the bathroom and stood there by the side of the tub looking over your shoulder at me, waiting for me to lift you in.  I let you play in the bathtub sans water this week, while I folded laundry sitting there watching you.  You had a grand time, so maybe that play time has increased your bath time comfort level? I noticed this week when I rinse your hair, you tilt your chin to your chest, so you get less water in your eyes. Smart kid.  Then you like to lick the water as it comes by your mouth.  Better than dipping your face in the tub, I say.

Wednesday night, it was the funniest thing, your pant leg had ridden up on your calf, so I reached over and tugged it down.  You were standing there, busy playing with the magnet on the refrigerator and you stopped, looked up at me, quirked a smirk, sat down and reached down and deliberately tugged the pant leg back up, then stood up and grinned at me, quite pleased with yourself.  Smarty pants.

Teething:  You are teething again.  You’ve had some really tough times this week when the pain is getting to you and you just stop playing or whatever, and scream/cry. You bite Froggy, you bite your popsicles, you even bite your hands and wrists leaving teethmarks on yourself.  It’s so sad.  Although when you’re teething, your latch gets a little pinchy, thankfully you don’t bite me anymore.   I think it’s probably your upper two bilateral incisors, because when you’re teething the upper teeth, they seem to hurt you more than than the lower ones… Tylenol, or as we call it, “medicine” is your friend.

You have started to multitask while nursing… it started with a spinning toy I bought you at Walgreens.  One presses a button and the insides of this toy lights up and spins.  You love the thing and wanted to nurse but didn’t want to let go of it.  So, you nursed and pressed the button, watching the thing light up and spin.  http://youtu.be/lCjwoOmc49w

Sleep:  Your sleep has been great this week.  Wakeup around 6:30am, sometimes later.  Nap have been good, over the holiday weekend you were back and forth between 2 naps and 1 nap.  Bedtime around 7 to 7:30pm.  I’ve been pushing our overnight nursing back to around 4am.  I’ve been toying with weaning this nursing, meaning that if you don’t wake for it, I won’t dreamfeed you, but I’m not ready to do that yet.  I promised myself I would keep it until you were a year old, for several reasons — it keeps my supply up; it keeps my period from returning; it’s less milk that I have to pump during the day; it’s precious time holding you that I don’t get otherwise; and it allows me to check on you in the middle of the night to make sure you’re OK.  The only benefit I would get from NOT doing it is uninterrupted sleep.  So we continue on.

In addition to being enamored with Asian people, you have added elderly people to your list of preferences.  You will spot an elderly person out of a crowd, focus, and draw them in with smiles and laughter.  Fortunately for you, old people like babies.  We were in Costco this past week and you did this to a nice elderly lady, she was IN LOVE with you and even asked if you were like this all the time (yes!) and commented that we are so blessed (yes, more than she can imagine).  She was so tickled to be grinned and laughed at by you.

Things I want to remember about you this week:  How you and I went for a walk and ended up at our neighborhood park with “big kid” swings.  I wanted you to swing, but it wasn’t safe for you to do so by yourself, so I held you and we did the swing thing… you thought it was great, laughing and snuggling with me.  How I took you to the ocean for the first time to watch the sunset, and you were a little scared of the enormity of the ocean, but were fine as long as you were close to me.  How you wanted to nurse so much over the Thanksgiving weekend that I was taken back in my mind to when you were a newborn.  It was time consuming, but that’s OK, because it reminded me to slow down and enjoy the closeness with you.  How your father babyproofed his XBOX, building a box around it with a hole in the wood for his controller’s signals, and the first thing you did was to poke your finger in that hole.  How I learned that when driving you around when it’s dark outside it’s best to leave the dome light on so that you can see me, otherwise you spend the entire drive fussing and crying.  How you initiated an elaborate game of peek-a-boo while we were driving home one night that went on for about 15 minutes, you pulled the hat I wasn’t wearing over your face and hid and then after a minute (literally) of hiding, you lifted the hat and grinned at me waiting for me to acknowledge you.

And so the holiday season has begun.  The weather is getting chilly again.  As I brought out my winter pajamas this week, I realized that the last time I wore these jammies was last year when I was still pregnant with you and then when you were a newborn.  And so when I hold you close when you’re nursing, I’m feeling a lot of nostalgia for that time when you were so small that I could nurse you and you still fit on the nursing pillow without having to cross your leg and hold one knee up.  There was one morning this week when your father was still in bed and so I brought you in there instead of nursing you straightaway.  You melted into his arms and tucked your head in his neck and you and your father snuggled quietly.  I took a picture, and I look at that picture and while it’s not perfect in lighting or composition, it’s perfect in the emotions revealed.

This year, I am so thankful that you are here so we can make memories such as this, in the quiet stillness of the early morning hours.  The bliss of love from the protector of our family, to the innocence of you, our son.

Love, Momma

This week on 11/22/2012, you turned 50 weeks or 11.49 months old.

Over the weekend, since we were traveling last Monday, we attended a makeup music class on Saturday morning.  Because of my work schedule, I usually show up for the last 20 minutes of these classes and this was the first time I was able to attend one of your classes from the start, and I was left in awe of your teacher.  She is incredibly talented, energetic and actually makes the class fun for the adults, too.  Plus, I was envious of the facility where this class was held, in the recreation center for a community whose outdoor pool is still heated… in November!  If you know me, you know I’m all about outdoor swimming pools!

That afternoon we headed to Downtown Disney to meet up with some longtime family friends for dinner, since they are unable to make your birthday party next month.  It was a true joy to see them and catch up, and I was so glad that we were able to make it happen.  Afterward, you and I went into Disneyland to have our picture taken in front of the big Christmas tree… this is something I hope to make an annual tradition.

Grocery shopping with you has become quite the entertainment.  Ever since you made the connection in your brain and you now know that we are buying food, you stare longingly at anything we put in the cart and if you get your hands on it, in your mouth it goes.  I thought the banana last month was funny (embarrassingly so), but then the next week you tongued an ice cream box, and this week you wanted to bite into a raw onion.  I swear, people are gonna think we starve you!

You are weighing in at 28 pounds.  Clothing sizing is the same, 18 month and some 24 months. New words you’re saying this week:  “Wow!”  Your Grandma D. says that came about after library story time, one of the books emphasized that word.  You demonstrate that you have an understanding of a lot of things we say and you are quite the little repeater.  Sometimes you’ll be protesting your diaper change and I’ll interrupt your complaining with a great big “Waaawaawah!”  You’ll look at me and repeat my mournful sound.  The other thing I’ll say is “Stop!”  You respond by looking at me and saying, “Pop?”  ha

New developments:  Climbing!  There’s a toy that has been in your play yard all this time and someone thought it a good idea to bring it into the living room.  Toy rotation, I think they call this.  The problem is that it’s the perfect height of a step and you discovered this and now use it as a step ladder and push it around to various things you want to reach.  When I discovered you doing that, a couple days went by and I put it back in your play yard.  It’s perfect for a newly sitting baby, but not so much for a baby who’s working on walking.  I’m thinking that toy is going to be one of the first ones rotated out after your birthday.

On 11/21, your sixth tooth emerged through your gums, your bottom right lateral incisor.  Clapping!  You clapped your hands for the first time after your music class last Saturday!  Blowing!  You blow out with your mouth… you’ve been “hissing” for awhile now, but the blowing is new, just in time for your birthday cake?  You intentionally blew out your nose and then inhaled, copying me one morning, now we just need to expand that skill to blow into a tissue.  A few weeks ago, during bath time, I started sliding your bath toys off the duck tub’s head into your bath with you, and now every time you get in the tub you look expectantly at the toys sitting on the ledge of the bath tub.  Your Grandma D. says that when she heats your milk during the day, you mimic her swirling the milk by moving your arm in a swirling motion.  Ripping things up!  You love to rip things up: magazines, newspapers, aluminum foil and paper coasters.  You figured out how to turn on your father’s projector with the remote control.  You also figured out how to pull your father’s laptop off the desk and onto the floor, that didn’t end well for the computer.

New Food(s) this week:  Beets.  You recognize the word “banana” and have for awhile, what I didn’t realize and your father did, is that you will come crawling from across the room if asked if you want one.  Unfortunately, banana sounds much like your word for nursing and so you make the milk sign for it while saying “nananannaaa.”

Things I want to remember about you this week?  How you reach for me in the mornings and make the milk sign desperately while saying “NAAAANAAAAA”.  How when you’re nursing and waiting for a letdown, you impatiently sign “milk” with your hand, and when the letdown happens, you stop signing and start moaning. How when you’re done nursing one breast, you’ll pull off and wave at it and say “Bye, bye!”   How one middle of the night nursing you pulled off in the middle of nursing and, concerned, I waited to see what you would do… you blew, and then latched back on and continued nursing.  How when I wanted to bake the gingerbread dough this week that I made last year when you were a newborn, I pulled out my cookie cutters and let you play with one of the boxes while I used the other one.  You examined each cookie cutter intently, one at a time, and then decided it would be a good idea to upend the thing and spread them across the kitchen floor.

How when you sleep at night, no matter how I lay you in your crib you always end up on your tummy and work your way to the end nearest the sound machine.  How when you’re concentrating on something, you have your mouth wide open.

In the mornings, our routine is that once you wake I nurse you and then give you a couple minutes on the floor in your room with your Book Nook while I prep your diaper by double stuffing it.  I pick you up and we look in your closet to determine what you will wear, you grab hold of the Mickey Mouse Medellion.  Then I change you and dress you and we exit your room and go find your father.  One morning this week I told you, as usual, “Let’s go find daddy!” Except your father was still in the shower and instead of going in there, I was planning to hold you a bit longer.  You started to cry and wiggle, so I let you down thinking you wanted to play.  The second you got to the floor, you hustled yourself into the master bedroom, around the corner and pushed open the bathroom door, and started banging on the shower door.  You were going to say good morning to your daddy, regardless of where he was!

Every day that goes by, you become more of your own person, with your own personality and your own preferences.  Parents who’ve gone down this road before me used to say stuff like, “It’s so fun to watch them discover things.”  I understood what they were saying, of course, but to watch it in motion, watching it happen before my very own eyes and know that the things I say and the things I do are a crucial part of your development, it’s an awesome and somewhat scary thing.  Much like when you were a newborn and I found you watching my every move in the mirror when I changed your diaper and I started smiling nonstop, now I find myself evaluating the things I say and the facial expressions I use around you.  You are an awesome kid and I don’t want anything I do to change that.

Love you forever,
Momma