Timmy at 13 months

Timmy has so many things he wants to do and say, and sometimes he gets frustrated.  He wants me to hold him, but he wants to get down, but he wants me to hold him, and now -- oh, no! -- he crumples to the ground and cries.  He sees me reading a book to his sisters, but he wants that book.  He doesn't want to hear Mama read it, he wants to grab it, look at the pictures, and maybe rip up the pictures.  He points to things and says things like, "Muh."  "Guh."  Sometimes he says "Dis."  I don't know if he means "this," but he does say it while pointing to something or looking at it, so I think that's what he means.  He'll make his little monosyllabic exclamations, and then look at me expectantly like, 'Well?  Aren't you listening?'  I say, "I have no idea what you're trying to say, but it sounds really cute."  

I have been using signs with him, but I don't think I'm consistent enough with it for him to really learn.  That's always been my problem with baby signs, with all the kids.  I just could never remember to use them every day all day.  I had the best results with Delaney, because I was better at remembering, and because I had kind of a signing buddy -- another mom who was trying to use signs with her baby.  I need to post notes around the house -- "sign with Timmy!"  

He takes steps for us here and there, but he's not very motivated to walk at this point.  We sit down on the floor and let him walk back and forth between us.  He'll stand alone for a few seconds, and then take a couple steps.  We get really excited any time he takes three steps or more.  We clap and say, "Good job, Buddy!"  But he doesn't always want to play along, and if he does, it's not for long.  He's still mostly content just to crawl around at warp speed.

My friend Amber took this picture.  I didn't really want to give Timmy the whole apple, but he loved it and worked on it for a long time.

He eats more than his two sisters combined.  At least that's the way it seems, the way he gobbles up whatever I put on his tray as fast as I put it down.  Well, not everything.  The other day, he wanted none of my three-cheese chicken penne pasta bake.  He looked at me like, 'Is this really food?'  Come to think of it, the rest of us didn't like that meal much either.  But almost everything else I can think of -- fruits, veggies, pasta, pizza, meat -- he devours.

He nurses four times a day now -- morning, before his morning nap, before his afternoon nap, and bedtime.  Then I feed him right before I go to bed, between 10 and 11.  That's the last I see of him until around 7 or 8.  He likes his sleep a lot.  (I do too!)  Sometimes I have to put him to bed at 6:30.  He's too tired to hang in there through bath and story time with his sisters.

Thumb in mouth and blank stare means "I'm ready to sleep now."

Shortly after his first birthday, I took him to his one-year checkup, and he weighed 24 pounds, 7 ounces (78th percentile) and was 29.5 inches tall (30th percentile).  I've read that babies should triple their birth weight by a year, but he's the first of my kids to do that.

He loves it when I lay down on his bedroom floor and just watch him play.  As long as I don't move, he's content.  He puts blocks into a bin, then takes them out.  Then he puts them back in and takes them out.  Or he presses the button on his Little People tractor.  Moo.. vroom, vroom.. then the song.  He beams at me and bounces up and down a little, waiting for me to sing along.  He just wants me to be there, I don't have to do anything.  If I get up and walk out, he gets an insulted look on his face and starts to cry.

Another thing he wants us to do is not to get him out of the crib right away after a nap.  We don't go in there until he starts to yell.  But even when he yells, it's just because he wants company.  Then he wants to play peek-a-boo games through the bars, and collapse backward on his mattress when we reach for him.  Then he watches us and waits for us to laugh.  He's a little ham.

This is my favorite of the first birthday pictures my friend Ashley took.

Annalise at seven months

Right after Thanksgiving, Annie had a growth spurt, and there were a couple long days and nights of lots of nursing and crankiness. But then I got my happy baby back and I was glad. She's such a sweet little baby, and for the first time, I'm becoming alarmed that this is going by too quickly. She's over halfway to a year!

She's still not crawling, but she's becoming a proficient scooter. She gets on all fours, then propels herself from her knees, landing on her belly, then repeats, leaving a trail of slobber as she goes. It's very awkward, but it gets her there. She's my fat little inchworm. She loves to go after cords and shoes. I see that just now she's figured out how to go from all fours to sitting. That's new.

She sleeps a LOT. She typically takes one long nap midmorning, another long nap around noon, then a third late-afternoon nap, and maybe even a fourth that might just turn into being down for the night if it goes long enough. Then she'll of course wake up just for a feeding at 10 or 11, and then again very early in the morning. Sometimes I don't get her out of bed for the day until 9, and by then she's been in bed for 15 hours! Still, after just an hour of being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, she's ready for her morning nap and the process starts all over again. I keep thinking maybe she ought to have a real schedule by now, but I'm already interfering enough with the one she's making up as she goes along. By that, I mean I interrupt her morning nap often, because that's when we go out. That's the best time of day to get Delaney out of the house. We go to Tot Gym or Storytime at the libray, or a playdate, or even just to Target. And if big sis goes, little sis has to too. I say, "Sorry, kiddo, I guess this is the plight of a younger sibling." She picks up where she left off once we get home. So that's our version of a schedule, and it's what works.

When she's tired, she rubs at her eyes and hair. Sometimes while she's nursing, she'll run her hands back and forth through her hair, and I have to agree with her that fuzzy baby hair feels nice to the touch, and that must be a comforting thing to do to get ready for sleep. If I go into her room while she's sleeping, I find her on her belly with her little lovey (one of those little fleece blankets with an animal head -- creepy when I put it that way, huh?) under her cheek. She should be the spokesperson for Snuggle fabric softener!

This month, she got the hang of a sippy cup with the no-spill valve in. I give her water in it, and sometimes water with a little bit of apple juice in it.

We did start solids last month -- some cereal, fruit and veggies -- only about a tablespoon a day total. Then I decided to take a week off from those because she was having tummy troubles and problems pooping. The day before she turned seven months, we started them again -- just a little bit, though. She doesn't even seem to like them yet.

We're still working on the signing. She hasn't signed back to me yet, but I think that's only a matter of time. I can tell she understands. One day, she was in her Exersaucer jumping up and down. I saw an opportunity, and I turned to her, smiled real big, and signed while saying, "Jump! Jump!" Then she paused and just looked at me. "Do it again!" I said, as I signed "again/more." She had this a-ha! look on her face, began jumping again, and I started signing and saying it. Ever since, it's been a game to her. She enjoys getting my attention by jumping, and I always reinforce the sign. A baby's first sign is often something more interesting than just everyday things like "milk", "eat", "drink", etc. My sister-in-law Kathy told me that her youngest, Natalie's, first sign was "play." That was because Kathy would say to her when she was done eating in her high chair, "Do you want to go play now?" instead of "All done." A friend lent me a signing video made by a doctor who is pretty much a pioneer in baby signing. He says to be on the look-out for "chance mutual gaze." That's when the baby notices something, you notice the baby noticing, and then you look at each other. That's a golden opportunity to introduce a sign for something that's interesting to him or her. It also means you'd better be on top of your signing vocabulary for when that moment comes!

She had her first cold this month, and it wasn't too bad. Just a lot of runny nose and some coughing. It might have disturbed her sleep maybe once.