13 Months

It was my plan to stop the monthly letters to Evan at one year. However, I must continue to document so I can use my blog as a reference when I scrapbook. You see, when there's a 13 month old or 12 month old...or 11 month old... or 10 month old... or, you get the idea... in the house, it's hard to find the time and energy to scrapbook the precious memories of said 13 month old. I'm currently on month 2-4-- 2 is completed; 3 and 4 are completed templates but with no pictures or writing. Did I mention he's 13 months old? This whole scrapbooking thing may never actually happen.

So, what's up in Month 13?

Walking, walking, walking. He still plops down on his butt or launches himself forward (rug burn to the forehead, anyone?) occasionally, but for the most part, he's up and going. He's working on some tricks like u-turns and backward walking. He makes regular attempts at running, which is usually what results in the rug burned forehead.

He still only says a few recognizable words-- mama, dada and ball. He's regressed and little and no longer says Laika. However, he chatters constantly. Blah, blah, blah. He's saying something, we just don't know his language.

He started pointing this month. It started with the rocket and spaceship over his changing table. He'd point at one and I'd say in a very dramatic voice, "ROCKET!" and then he'd point at the other, "SPACESHIP!" It wasn't long before he started pointing at everything. "WINDOW!" "FAN!" One morning, I left him sitting in his high chair while his waffles were toasting (yes, waffles... he eats two blueberry waffles each Saturday/Sunday morning). When I came back into the room, the toaster had popped up and he was whining loudly and pointing at it. It was quite a "Leggo my Eggo!" moment.

During this month, he official got two bottom molars. The two top canines are about to slice through at any moment and one top molar is chewing it's way out of his gums. Teething is seriously gnarly. Ick. I want to check the progress, but I can barely stand to look in his mouth. All this teething has made him a super awesome kid. Not. Let's just say, his misery loves company.

He's doing much better in daycare these days. He doesn't cry when we leave anymore. He also doesn't have an emotional breakdown when we arrive each afternoon. Less crying = good. He's adjusting to the other kids. Ms. Dana says he loves outside time and throws a fit (no! not my precious baby!) when they have to go back inside. He's also become a huge fan of story time. She says when they sing the story time song (I have no idea what that means), he drops whatever he's doing and crawls/walks as quickly as he can to the story circle with no regard for whatever toy or kid is in his way. That's my boy. Do not mess with his story time. All you punks leisurely making your way to the story circle need to recognize!

When you try to get artsy by laying on the ground for pictures,
you become a jungle gym. 

"Ok, back to the blanket." 

This is my FAVORITE.
Not a wonderful picture but classic Evan. 

Oh, these two... 

Bed Head

Here he comes! 

And there he goes! Bubye! 

Lazy Weekend

"Do you want some?"

Too much walking and getting into trouble.
He couldn't make it to nap time or lunch time! 

His Skills Improved While I Was Gone

And this...

Weeeeeee!




We didn't teach him this. We just said "good job" once and he started applauding for himself. Could he be more adorable?

A Little Bit of Everything

I won't be posting much over the next week or so. I'll be out of town from Saturday morning until Wednesday afternoon. David and Evan will be having their first male bonding experience.

So, here's what we've been up to.

I've been wanting to do an Evan's Favorites post for a while now. He's finally to the point that he has some favorites. Here's a short list:
~ Blueberries
~ Blueberry waffles
~ Spaghetti
~ Cheese
~ Climbing over things-- especially Mom's or Dad's legs or Laika
~ Balls-- it's the one word that he can kind of say, and he loves throwing them
~ Playing in the bathtub... whether there's water in there or not

He's a Vampire Beach Hunk.
Just kidding, Evan <3 Blueberries. 

Water, Schmater.
Some people use the TV to babysit their kids,
I use the bathtub. 

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Evan and Laika become closer buds every single day. And they're both total pains in my butt. (Did you see the begging post? That's for reals. Every. Single. Time.) I always knew we made a good choice with Laika. She really is a wonderful dog... even if I sometimes want to murder her when she wakes me up at 3am on an otherwise "sleeping-through-the-night" night with her vigorous butt munching... or when she chooses right outside Evan's bedroom door to shake her loud floppy ears. I still love her. And,  I love my boy and his dog.

Ruff! 

"Oh, Laika. I just love your soft ears." 

"I  <3 you, Evan."

My boy and Satan Dog. Seriously, look at her face! I'm not sure how
I captured that look, but this picture scares the crap out of me! 

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Evan and I visited the Butterfly House last weekend. I didn't know if he'd even care but he seemed interested in the butterflies. Since it's essentially a big tent full of butterflies and caterpillars, it's not like he could not notice them everywhere.

I feel so fortunate that we have cool places like this to visit. 

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We've been enjoying the nice weather with regular wagon rides and playing outside. I used to like playing on the blanket in the backyard. That was when Evan was "scared" of the pokey grass. He didn't like feeling it on his skin. Now, he's overcome his fear.

Being good on the blanket... for about one second. 

Escapee

This reminds me a lot of ...

This. 

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Evan has learned recently to operate some of his toys. He's figured out that the dog in his bed (Scout) sings songs and talks to him if he squeezes his paws. So, sometimes at 3am, I'll hear: "My favorite color is green! Is that your favorite color too, Evan?" "I'm feeling a little sad. Will you give me a hug?" "Twinkle, twinkle little star..." He presses the buttons over and over and over. Finally, he'll press the foot button which is bedtime music, and he'll fall back asleep. I'm glad I don't have to get out of bed to tend to him, but I'd rather not hear his conversation with Scout at 3am.

He's also learning to take bites. Like, small bites off of big food. For example, instead of trying to shove an entire pizza crust into his mouth like usual, he ate it bite by bite last night. When he's lucky enough to get a bite of my snacks, I make him bite it off for himself. It's amazing how much stuff we take for granted. Who knew I'd be so impressed by taking a bite of something?

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And, just for fun...

Beggars

I cannot bring any item of food into the living room anymore. What was that post I wrote a while back? Something like "Ways that my kid is like my dog..."? My dog is better behaved. 

Sunday Randomness and Crappy Cell Phone Pictures

Evan can walk pretty dang good now. If he focuses hard, he can make it all the way across the living room. I need to get a video but it's random and never on command so it's hard to catch. He also says "ball" except, he almost always says "apple" first. That's weird because I'm fairly confident that he's never seen a whole apple to know that it's semi-ball shaped. 

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Sometimes I have a moment that makes me think I must be on a sitcom because it's just so stereotypical. The other day I was brushing my teeth and Evan came crawling into the bathroom. We don't usually let him in there but I was only going to be a minute and I didn't figure he'd get into too much trouble in the short amount of time. 

He crawled directly to the toilet, stood up and plunged his hand right in. After we got that cleaned, he very stealthily unrolled half of the toilet paper roll. Seriously? Babies really do this stuff? I honestly thought that was something that Hollywood had made up. Of course, I should've known it was real since Kitten Lars unrolled an entire FULL roll of tp and drug it through our entire apartment... on multiple occasions. 

 

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If Evan acts interested in my food, I almost always give him a bite (unless it's really spicy) because I want him to try new foods. And sometimes, like when I'm eating breakfast in the living room on a weekend and he's begging worse than the dog, I hope that he won't like it and will leave me alone. So, when I was eating an everything bagel with cream cheese, I was sure he'd have one taste and be done with me. I was so wrong. One day, I'm going to let him taste my coffee so he'll leave that alone. But, with my luck, he'll love it and I'll have a coffee drinking one year old on my hands. 

Dude Looks Like a Lady

While wagoning around the neighborhood tonight, we ran into a lady with a very heavy Jamaican accent.

Lady: (to Evan) "Oh, hey! I like that! Can I go for a ride?"
Evan: **blank, WTF stare**
Lady: (to me) "Boy or girl?"
Me: "Boy."
Lady: (to Evan) "Well! That, I can't believe! You looka like a woman!"

A woman. The lady thinks my son lookas like a woman.

I dunno, I'm not seeing it. A little grumpy, maybe. But, not like a woman. Maybe because he wasn't wearing any pants, she thought he looked like a slut. 

Baby Steps

Things I Never Thought I'd Say

"You smell like ketchup and pudding." 

I might have to rename this blog that: Ketchup and Pudding. He is, after all, no longer a "baby".


"You have fish behind your ear." 


"Please don't drink the bathwater... please don't drink the pool water... please don't drink the dog's water..." 

Geeze! Somebody give this kid some water!

Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby!

The last year has gone by so quickly. And at the same time, it's been the longest year of my life. It's been so hard, so exciting, so exhausting, so fun. It's been everything I expected and more. Yet, it's been absolutely nothing like I expected.

The first few months were very hard. Between lack of sleep, almost constant nursing and having no idea what the hell we were doing, I wondered if I could really do this parenthood thing. Going back to work part time at 4 weeks and full time at 8 weeks did not help matters. Trying to be a functioning employee while still only getting 3 hours of sleep at a time was crazy-hard. There were days at work that were completely wasted-- reading the same line of a report over, and over, and over or spending a whole morning composing one email. At the same time, work was my sanctuary from the crying and the constant nursing [insert crude joke about my coworkers here].

As the six month mark rolled around, Evan became much more interesting. He was sleeping better (mostly) and we were all in our groove. Newborns are nice, but they're sorta boring and after 6 months, Evan became much more exciting. He was learning new things every day. One day, he couldn't sit up and then the next day, he could. I was told to enjoy that short time when he was sitting but not moving. I should've listened because it wasn't long before he was army crawling. In fact, he really got the hang of that in Germany.

As he got closer to a year, he started pulling up and walking along things and crawling like it's his job. He became so much more aware of his surroundings and wanted to get into everything. He's so social-- waving and smiling at everyone, yet so clingy to David and most of all, to me. He's moody beyond belief. There are days when I can barely stand to send him to daycare because he's so fun and I just want to hang out with him all day. And then there are days, weekend days, that I think suffering death by PowerPoint at work would be a much better option. Luckily, there are far more awesome days.

Momma's Boy [August 2011]

Momma's Boy [July 2012]

And then, my baby turned one. He had a rough day at daycare on his birthday-- crying and not eating and he had some sores in/around his mouth. I'm pretty sure he had hand, foot and mouth... again. He got his birthday present from us that evening (a wagon) and had his favorite dinner (spaghetti), which he ate enough of to make up for the non-eating at daycare.

Birthday Boy

Evan is ONE

Why must he do this with the balloons?! I had the
living room filled with 30 balloons for him. 

Taking a couple birthday steps. He can take 4 or so on his own now.

Loves, loves, loves the wagon! 

On Saturday, Grandma Barbi, Grandpa Ed and Uncle Randy came to visit. David smoked some pork and we had a delicious lunch. I'm glad David will teach Evan to cook one day because he sure isn't going to learn from me. I think we're both pretty excited about teaching him math and science through cooking... and, he'll make someone a good husband one day.

Eggos and coffee with Daddy before the fun begins
(Ack! I love these two!) 

Hanging with Grandma and Grandpa

Chillin' with Uncle Randy

We FaceTimed with Grandma Janet and Cousin Michaela while Evan had his cake. After not eating any lunch, he was very slow and methodical about the cake eating. Like, "I wasn't planning on eating anything for lunch, but since you sat this cake in front of me, I suppose I'll eat it." And so, it was slow handful after slow handful of bright blue and green icing into his mouth. But then his eyes needed rubbed and before we knew it he was covered.

Adorable cake... that wasn't all that tasty. 

"You can go ahead and scoot that on over here." 

And it begins...

"Ok, I'm tired of this. Next?" 

He went directly into the bathtub and then opened some presents. Then he napped and opened some more presents. As destructive as he is, I thought he'd get into the present opening, but he didn't. He got toys for right now, toys for later, clothes and college.

This is about as good as the interest in gifts gets. 

"Sweet! Another dog to abuse!"
[Notice Laika to the left, jealous of IKEA dog.]

I think he had a great birthday. I also think (know) he has no idea that it was his birthday... or what a birthday is. But, at least we have the pictures to prove to him how much fun he had.

"Dude. What's with the droopy balloon?"

"Arrrr! I hate this balloon!" 

"It's my party and I'll frown if I want to." 

Proud Parents [July 29, 2011]

Proud Parents [July 29, 2012]

Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby!