Twenty months ago…

… on January 1st at 8:30 in the morning, I found out that my life was changing. Happy New Year! I thought twelve hours beforehand that it was because I had applied to nursing school, but God had other plans for me. I became an incubator to a human life.

It’s 25 days until Clark’s first birthday and I haven’t done a monthly post in awhile, so I thought it would be fitting today to revisit a monthly post in anticipation of his first birthday and in reflection for preparing his scrapbook this coming weekend.

Eating

Clark is transitioning right along with the foods associated with certain skills. He eats lots of finger foods and is skilled at picking up just about everything he wants to eat, but we don’t usually allow him to eat anything but snacks with his fingers since he likes to throw and squish the food more than eat it. 🙂 We’re moving him away from the pureed foods and towards Gerber Graduates since he enjoys eating off our plates more than his own. In fact, he refuses to eat the toddler foods unless they are on a regular plate because he knows that what he gets isn’t what we’re eating. He takes bites with his SEVEN teeth (and I think an eighth is on its way) and knows to chew food up before swallowing, but we’re still phasing in meat in the tiniest pieces because Clark hasn’t figured out how to grind food between his gums/teeth yet, just bite and chew, so he gets frustrated by how long it takes for the meat to break into small enough pieces to swallow.

We’re slowly transitioning Clark from formula to milk. Right now, his 4-6 bottles a day consist of four ounces formula, one scoop rice cereal, and two ounces milk. He’s used to this mixture so at the end of this week, we’ll trade two more ounces of formula for milk. He will already drink milk by itself, but only in small portions and not a whole bottle. I can’t tell you how elated I am to not have to spend $150 a month on formula anymore!

Sleeping

Clark is a champion sleeper. He’s been pushing his bedtime a little later recently, going out for the night between 8 and 9:30pm and he’s fighting it a little more by crying or talking for up to 10 minutes, but once he’s out, he’s out until at least 7am the next morning. It seems like he’s sleeping around 11 hours straight most nights. Clark will occasionally wake in the middle of the night, but a bottle and a diaper change, and he’s asleep again with no fight. Sleeping has been the biggest key to my happiness as a parent. I sincerely hope that he continues to be a good sleeper for the rest of his life.

Motor Skills

I’m probably most impressed by how strong Clark’s motor skills are. He walks and runs fairly easily without shoes (with shoes is another story because he’s pigeon-toed like Mama), stands up without having to find a wall or other object most of the time, pick up the tiniest things with his forefinger and thumb, opens doors and drawers and cabinets (much to our dismay! haha) and makes our lives crazy and fun. This makes him seem so much more like a little boy than a baby, and that both frightens and excites me. He’s as big as a two year old!

Language Development

I have the hardest time in this area because I know he’s developmentally on-target, but I wish that he were progressing faster because of my fascination with languages. We try to speak to him in real language as much as possible with the higher intonations that he prefers. He knows what we’re saying a lot and responds non-verbally, but he’s also starting to add some verbal items to his bag of tricks. Clark will call us mama and dada and will address us as the right label individually, especially when he is upset about something or if one of us leaves. He also gets really excited when he thinks he can get to a cat before it has a chance to run away and squeals keekee as he chases them. He’ll say hi mama and hi dada in the mornings sometimes when we wake him up, and he’ll sometimes say bye bye when prompted, but not often. Lately, Clark has been trying to mimic our sounds a lot and I swear the other day he mimicked I love you. I say it to him a million times a day, so it is quite possible that he mastered it. I feel like he’s on the edge of the language explosion and I cannot wait until it happens!

Twenty-five days and I officially have a one year old. Where has the time gone???