My little baby! I can hardly believe one year has already flown by. It was simultaneously a very very long year and also a very quick one..the saying, "the days are long, but the years are short" is SO true when you have little children. To be honest, I am pretty emotional about you growing up. You're my last. my baby. I don't want those special years of having babies to be over. I am exhausted from 11 years of growing and feeding babies, getting up at all hours of the night to care for them, changing diapers, dealing with car seats, etc. etc. but also, it is just such a special and SWEET time of life. You are so innocent and so full of JOY and love. It is such a privilege to be your mom and to have your full attention and to be loved and wanted so deeply by you. Pregnancy is so special- literally seeing life grow inside and watching you dance around. and nursing you to sleep at night is such a gift...your long dark lashes closed and your perfect little body nestled in the crook of my arm. I can't count how many nights I fell asleep while nursing you at 2am..I am sure you loved all the extra snuggle time sleeping with me. Watching all the firsts and all the learning and growth happening right in front of my eyes- a new word or skill every day. It is magical. It is such a joy to raise you and I am enjoying it so so so very much. I am SO thankful for the Lord giving you to us. We knew we weren't done with kids and He knew you were the perfect little guy for our family. thankful thankful thankful. Ok...into who you are as a 1 year old!
You aren't quite walking, but very soon... yesterday (and granted it is already 2 weeks past your first bday so sorry life was busy!), you took your first step! You let go of the air dr and took a single step into my arms and it was magic. our last first step. Big sis June was there for the moment too. We tried several times to get you to do it again throughout the day, but you wouldn't ha. 2 days ago, you just started standing up with no support out of nowhere. It wasn't anything you'd done before and then boom you were doing it over and over. you pretty quickly figured out that we all clap for you when you do it, so you did it a lot yesterday too while looking over for our cheers ;) you are right in the middle of getting your 4th tooth (a giant top front tooth) and kinda cranky and you screamed half the way to the splash pad, but once we got there you were all content. I brought you a bucket full of water to splash in, but you kept venturing out toward the big spouts of water. Eventually, I let you and you looooved it. you spent the next 30 mins going to town- standing up all over in the splash pad for your first times haha. why there? so slippery ha. i got so many videos and you ended up with your first little sunburn on the backs of your calves. it is so fun showing off the videos of your new tricks to dad when i catch them on video. the other day, I got you shaking your head no- you just figured it out and then proceeded to practice it over and over- so cute. and then you learned the "Indian noise" where you hit your flat hand to your mouth while making a noise "aw wa wa wa" you know the one? and again, you did that all day. you are so much fun! i love seeing you learning.
anyway, you aren't quite walking. you have been bear crawling everywhere for the past several months. sometimes you still do an actual crawl, but for the most part you bear crawl all over and it is precious. you must be super strong for your size cuz man that is hard! you also have the best deep squat and will sit and play in the deep squat position- totally balanced. you were obsessed with the stairs for a while when you were learning them, but now you don't care too much about them since and we can even leave the stair guard open and mostly, you'll bypass the stairs and head toward the playroom to get busy with all the toys. it is a relief that you are starting to go off and play for longer periods of time. you'll come back to make sure mom is still around, but you are feeling confident enough to go explore without me right next to you always. growing up!
you are loving cars most right now! you will sit and vroom the car back and forth over and over making little "vroom vroom" noises. the best! you actually are displaying quite an attention span when it comes to cars. you love to go out and wave "bye bye" to dad when he leaves for work and we watch his car go. you watch cars from windows when you can. good thing we have so many toy cars already! you also enjoy dinosaurs just because we have so many and you'll make them "raaar" and laugh. you love to make the "raar" sound to scare us and you'll laugh hard when we react. It never gets old. I will miss those innocent little games and giggles that only a baby can do- you can do it 10x in a row and it is still funny.
you say a few words now which is SO fun. you say "mama" and "dada". you say "ba" for bath. you very clearly say "bye bye" while waving. you say "ni ni" for night-night. you say "num num" for food and "mi" for milk. and we for sure heard you say "anna" one time. that is actually all you say haha. but i know so many more words are on the horizon. it is always my favorite watching vocabulary explode! for now, you point and grunt and i love it. you are very vocal about what you want- starting with an "unh" and progressing to a bit of a cry or scream if you aren't answered in the way you want.
you are obsessed with remotes. it isn't good haha. our main tv remote is officially toast so we've been letting you play with it, but now you want all remotes. we keep a projector on a little table behind mom and dad's bed and watch tv on the ceiling in that room and you know about it because of too many late nights where you wouldn't go to sleep and would end up in bed with us and you yell at me to put you up on the bed and then you always book it for the remote. i've started hiding it most days haha. you still love to be up on our bed and you just recently learned to go down feet first and so now I can actually leave you up on the bed and go about my business- it is such a glimpse into the freedom that will come as you grow and learn. I want to hold on to you as a baby forever, but I also look forward to when you run off with Zeke and Ellie and are super engaged in their pretend play and I can work in relative peace for a while ;)
your siblings are still as obsessed with you as ever. Jo still begs to be the one to get you up from naps or in the morning and June and Zeke ask quite often too. you've started giving hugs- kind of- and they all eat it up. Ellie will totally let you beat her up while you hug and kiss her. her poor hair haha. zeke is still learning that he has to make his giant magna-tile creations up high or you will for sure knock it down. he gets pretty upset about that, but I need you to have access to the playroom ha. i know soon enough you'll be building with him! you kind of wrestle with your siblings and for sure with me. you'll pull up my shirt and give me fart kisses on my stomach and then i'll grab you and give you fart kisses and tickle you and you laugh and laugh until you're breathing all hard, but you just keep going over and over. it is so much fun. my son! all boy. Jo has been acting as my jr. mother's helper this year. last year, I paid a teenage boy to come hang out mostly with Zeke and Ellie while I got office work done and tried to not fail at life during our busy summer and paid him $5/hr for 4 hours 1x a week. Jo is not able to handle 4 hours at once with Zak haha so we do 1 hour at a time a few days a week and it has been going pretty well. she actually asks to spend her $ on tv time or extra candy, so it isn't even that expensive for me haha. you enjoy Jo- she will swing you or take you to the trampoline or the playroom. you're so lucky to have her! June is really great with you too- she has to kind of fight to get time with you because Jo is a baby hog ;) and you clearly prefer to play with Zeke and Ellie and follow them everywhere- you love playing in the little toy house outside with them most of all probably. we also spend a lot of time all swinging with mama pushing you and you all trying to kick me. yes, you caught on to the try to kick mom game really quick and it is so cute when you flail your body down to try to get me haha.
speaking of that playhouse, you pooped in it a couple days ago! we did a lot of elimination communication in the past few months and for a while, you would take a poop over the sink or in your tiny potty every morning. it was awesome! i probably went 2 months without changing a poopy diaper. but now you are refusing. you wait until the diaper is off and then poop pretty quickly. on the floor. outside in the garden. wherever. it is no fun. and in your diaper too- 3x some days. it is like you aren't getting it all out so you go so much more ha. i am really hoping the consistency of continuing to try will help you potty train early! guess we will see.
you are pretty little- still rocking 9 month onesies. big brother was in 18 month onesies by your age. your hair is pretty blond with the summer sunshine and has sweet little baby curls in the back. it is getting kind of long and i'm thinking we may need to cut it soon, but i just can't think about that yet. your eyes are still very blue. piercing when you're wearing anything blue. beautiful blue eyes. you are just SO cute. i can't get enough. you have your 2 bottom teeth and one giant top tooth with the other coming through. i mean honking big front teeth- cnossen style, so sorry ;)
when you get mad, you arch your back so hardcore. it is hilarious and the worst. you certainly know how to make yourself heard when you don't get what you want. you are loud when you want to be ha. you also know how to get attention- you love to pull your siblings hair, and hit them haha. we are working on "gentle" but without a dog, it isn't quite as easy to teach I guess.
you are a decent eater- you love berries most of all! and banana. but you like almost everything. you still love your milk, but only nurse well before nap or bedtime or at nighttime. you have a hard time taking the time to nurse when you can hear or see your siblings and all the busy in our lives. before naps, I have to go into the laundry room/your bedroom with the white noise machine on and the lights off and then you'll nurse haha. it isn't the best for my back, but it works! you are a pretty good sleeper- you are working on transitioning to one nap a day which is nice because it makes the nap long and you go to bed easier at night! you sleep on your tummy with your little booty up in the air and sucking your thumb. we have a hard time keeping your siblings quiet during nap times, so that is just something we have to deal with haha.
you love your dad so much. it is so fun to see you bond with him. i love having babies with that man- he is such a good dad and he loves you all so much. you love to snuggle with him in bed while he is on his phone and you'll just lay there and watch him. you love to wave bye as he goes to work. you reach for him if i'm holding you and he gets near. you do that with Jo too. most of my other babes have just wanted mama mama mama, so it is really sweet to watch these deeper bonds you have with your family. I love it so much. You're going to have a pretty sweet life being the baby of 5 haha.
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