One.Two Years

 1.2 Years

• I am added two photos this month because I didn't get a cute one of just you so I am added the Christmas Sunday photo of all of you. But you took a selfie of yourself, so I thought that I had to add that. You are very interested in my phone and often steal it from me the moment it gets within reaching distance. You are quick to slide it over to the photo part. There are burst of over 100 photos on my phone because of you. It is gross if you find it after eating a treat because then you leave it all sticky.
• You took your first steps!!!! After Thanksgiving, we busted out the chocolate chips and had you practice walking between me and dad. One day (Nov 29) you stood up in the middle of the room by yourself and took a few steps towards me without me prompting you. It was so exciting. I can't get you to walk whenever we want you too. It has to be on your terms. We keep telling ourselves that anyway you are just going to take off, but you still prefer crawling. At last, Dec 19, we were at the Jones's house for a piano recital. I put brown boots on, which I never have you wear shoes. During the recital, there were lots of plates with food on them on all the couches and chairs. You would walk between couches to eat all the food. Since then, you have been a walker. 
• Christmas has been fun and challenging with you. We purposely choose a spruce so you wouldn't grab it (success!) however, whenever you get a chance to be by presents, you ripe open as many as you can. We couldn't have any presents under the tree, so I kept them all in my room so I wouldn't lose them. Well, one gift for dad got open three different times. It has been really fun to share treats with you (you love egg nog) and watching you play with the little people nativity set. 
• Food has been harder this month. You either love a dinner and eat platesful (like spaghetti and broccoli) while other dinners you throw it all off your tray. Mowgli loves those days! Some things that you always love-oatmeal, bananas, applesauce, pb sandwiches, cooked peas. Those are my go-to. You have learned the word "all done" and it trying to say more. When you see food that you want to eat, you open your open like a little bird and squeal real loud. Then you are eating a food you love, you grunt "yum" the whole time you are eating it. 
• Some of your favorite things in life-mom holding you, your pacifier, wrestling with dad, making messes, sneaking into Maggie's room, baths, going to walks, and cuddling up with a bottle of milk.

One.One Year

 1.1 Year

• We celebrated Halloween this month. Maggie convinced me to get you a kangaroo costume with you being our little Joey. I was nervous that you were just going to rip the whole thing off in two minutes, but you ended up really liking it. It kept you warm while we went out that night to trick o treat. 
• You are standing so much this month. When Mille first told me that you stood up, I didn't believe her because she treats everything you do like it is a major milestone. Then later that night, you were holding onto my leg when you let go and straighten up. Since then, you have stand up so many times. You love sitting on the step down in the livingroom and going and down with sitting. 
• Dad and I have been working on getting you to walk, so we started the chocolate chip game with you. We will pass you back and forth (really it is holding onto our finger and then you falling into the other's lap). You get a chocolate chip for trying. You love the game. Your big siblings will get involved and try to play with you.
• You have been going back to waking up around 5/5:30 each morning to have a bottle of milk and then you will go back to sleep. It's not my favorite thing. I don't know what to do to get you back to sleeping through the night. Naps are hard, because days you want to go down for a nap around 10 but then you will have a hard time going for a second. I don't really know how to schedule my day, so good thing most things are canceled with COVID so we can have flexible days.
• You are still a big mess maker. You rarely play with toys. You do love exploring places and pulling things out of drawers. You keep getting into my side table and pulling out the Christmas cards. A few people will end up with crumpled photos.

One Year

 One Year

Oh my goodness! How has a year gone by so fast. I have a tradition that on birthdays, instead of making a list of your milestones and funny moments, I like to take a moment and write you a love letter. I really love you. I know I tease that Dad had to beg for the last two, but really, you are exactly what our family needed. 

You bring goofiness. Whenever I try to get you to say "mama", you will say "papa" and then laugh at me, every time. 

You bring strength. When you want something, you will crawl over three laps, belly flop over a pill, scale the side of the couch, climb up onto the table, just to get a book that you know you aren't suppose to have. I will take the book away from you and then the process starts all over to reach the other table for another book. 

You bring extra love. When you wake up in the mornings, you love to cuddle up, drink a bottle milk, and then snuggle for another 15 minutes, most of the time, falling right back asleep  for another hour or so. 

You bring messes. Oh the messes. I just ordered more baby locks because you love to get into the cabinets and create chaos. I found you had dumped the bucket of oxyclean all over you. You love to suck on my tampons (still in the wrapper, thank goodness), and rummage for leftovers in the trash can. I was playing a game with you the other day. I was putting all the shapes into the shape sorter toy. Once I did them all, you ripped off the lid, each them one at a time, and threw them one your shoulders. That was the game. We played about 20 rounds of it. You love making messes. 

You bring laughter. All the kids adore you and you adore them. I love finding out what makes people laugh. At the dinner table, you kept putting your feet on the table as you ate a dinner roll just because Sam was cracking up over it. When Dad is wrestling with the big kids, you crawl right on over because that is where the laughter is and you want to be a part of it. 

You bring so much into our family. I know what our family was like without you, but to tell you the truth, you add so much more to our family that I would never go back. My love for you is bursting from me that I want to literally squeeze you and eat your cheeks off. I have been bale to hold off for this long, so I think you are safe. I am sad to see you leave the baby stage and become more of a toddler. At the same time, I am so excited to see where you will go in life. 

Love Always,

Mom

Eleven Months

 11 Months

• This picture is a week late because on the day that you turned 11 months, you were so fussy, you refuse to let me sit you in the chair by yourself. It turns out that you were cutting your second top tooth. This happened last time. You get a runny nose when cutting a tooth, but your ears must be really narrow because it then turns into an ear infection. We were leaving in a few days for South Dakota, so we got you medicine right away, since last time it ended up with a ruptured ear drum. 
• You are wanting to stand and cruise! Once you realized that there is some benefit to being on your feet, you are hard to stop. You stand up a lot in your crib, which makes it harder to fall asleep sometimes for nap. You pull yourself up to the couch when I am folding clothes so you can pull off all my folded piles. You even will walk around the room a bit when we hold your hands. 
• Your crawling has officially moved from the belly army crawl to the hands and knees crawl. Yay for not as dirty of a shirt. And here's to holes in the knees. I think though you will catch on to walking pretty quickly.
• You still are really clingy to me, but overall, you are such a happy baby who really loves life and messes. You dart for an open closet to destroy and then turn around and smile at me for your great work. Favorite areas to mess up are the newspaper box in the small pantry, the church bag in the entry way closet, and the shoes in the laundry room. 
• I have been taking you to soccer each time and for the most part, there is someone (usually one of the Zechmann girls) who just scoops you up and plays with you for the evening. As long as you can't see me, you really enjoy yourself.
• You are miss chatty. Still no real words. I mean you say dada and mama, but you say it a lot even when we aren't around, so I think it is more noise than word. I love how you and Millie will play this game. You will say "baba" and then Millie will repeat you. Both of you will laugh and start over again.

Ten Months

 10 Months

• It has been a fun month for us, seeing you get bigger and more of a personality. 
• You love to dance. We like play Kidz Bop Music in the kitchen you start flapping your wings (your signature dance move). Havannah is a sure fire song to get you to flap and laugh.  
• You love getting others to laugh with you. When you know something is funny, you were repeat it over and over. While we were eating dinner, you thought it was so funny that Mowgli was eating the food you threw off and lick your hands. So then you just kept throwing your dinner off instead of eating it. When we tell you no, you think we are encouraging you (you have know idea was no means), so you laugh harder and keep doing it. 
• Another thing that I try to say no to but you interpret it as "okay Mommy, I will keep doing this" is playing with the dog food. Not only do you like to eat it, but you will throw it in the air like it is a firework. One night as I was trying to make dinner, You threw the dog food all over the laundry room. Right after I swept it all up, you snuck into the small pantry and exploded all the newspaper in the box. 
• Your tooth top popped through! You use to eat all the meat that you like. Your favorite foods are bread, meat, and fruit (strawberries and plums are going strong). The last one is causing a month long case of diarrhea. 
• I haven't been able to get you to sit still for much of a book yet, but so far we are up to two library books the you have ripped up. 
• You do like like to stand at all. Maggie is sweet and has been putting raisins along the fire place to get you to stand longer. I have found that you can pull yourself up in your crib. So, yes, you know how to pull yourself up and to stand, more most of the time, you simply won't.

Nine Months

9 Months

• You are everywhere. You love crawling under the desk, over to the piano to play with the pedals, and then onto the steps where you cry to join me in the kitchen. Once in the kitchen, I have to put the dog food up. Your clothes are trashed because you will sneak out to the back porch. Whatever. Good thing you are the last so I don't feel like I have to keep it perfect for the next child. 
• Fourth of July went really well with you. I never know what to do with babies so late at night. We just put you to bed around 7pm and woke you up at 9:30pm when we headed out to see the fire works. You treated it just like a nap, were so happy to see the lights, and then went right to bed when we got home. I didn't get any pictures of you in your outfit because you got it so dirty at Pine Bar that we just changed you wen we got home. 
• You diet has been really expanded lately. We went on an adventure to the Selway Falls and you tried dog poop, sand, and power bait, along with Chinese food that night (though you liked all of them the same). 
• We introduced you to playing balls and it makes you crack up. We just pass the ball back and forth. At one point, you were laughing so hard, you would fall backwards. I got a video of you and sent it to the grandmas. They love seeing you.
• You have been so grumpy this last week. At points during the day, I have had to leave the other kids at home and just push you in the stroller for 20 minutes to calm you down and give me some quiet. Dad was on call this weekend, so it has been hard on me to deal with your crying and clinglyness all by myself. I kept checking your temperature, but never a fever. Finally, a week into this new mood, I started giving you medicine (makes you so much happier). So is it teething? Well, a fever finally came (though honestly I think you had one for a while, out thermometer just wasn't working) and you woke up with crusts in your ear. Poor baby, you have had a horrible ear infection this who time. We finally got you on real medicine and drops, so there is hope again. What was hard is that you wanted only me, but you hate being rocked so I don't know how to comfort you. Really the only thing that comfort your is me holding you while walking around. I did this a lot because I love you so much and really was trying hard to make you feel better.

Eight Months

8 Months

• Oh my goodness, could you get any more cuter? Wherever I take you, people always comment how cute and happy you are. You really are a happy baby, but at the same time, you are not afraid to let me know that you are not content at the moment.
• Crawling, moving, shaking, that is what you do all day. You love to crawl around the furniture but then will get stuck in the legs of the side tables. I am having to sweep and mop more because your cloths are getting so brown from army crawling all over the floors. The living room has serves sort of a play pen for you because you can't climb the stairs yet, but now you discovered that you have to left in the room by yourself, so you crawl over to the stairs where you can seeing me cooking, and cry for me to pick you up. I don't love you in the kitchen because you found the dog food and the floor in the kitchen is so dirty at times, I feel like I have to change your outfit afterwards.
• Swim season has started and you really enjoy the water. It is still tricky knowing when to go-before or after nap-but you usually a good sport about it.
• We went to CDA over Father's Day to visit the lake and spend a day at Silverwood. You were obvious to small to have done anything, but you were happy the whole time, especially since you only napped a total of 40 minutes the whole day. 
• After reading the other kids blog at this age, I realized that we were behind on having you stand up. You just love the floor so much, you usually sit right down the moment we stand you up. The kids have been working hard on getting you to practice standing along the fireplace. You haven't taken any steps while standing, but you will stand for a whole minute or two before just sitting down. 
• Food is still your favorite and for the most part, you love it all. I have introduced a bit more dairy, which you seem to hardly well. The other thing that had bothered you are really cold food like fresh cold smoothies or watermelon straight from the frig. 
• You are a crack up. You will do the blowing bubbles/spitting sound. You know that it makes us laugh, so you will do it over and over to see us laugh. If I lay you down on the bed to get you dress, you start laughing while trying to crawl away. I love seeing these glimpse of your illy personality coming through. I have a feeling you are going to be a real goof ball.