1 whole year!

I cannot believe I am writing this! I am excited and sad all at the same time. You are no longer a "baby", even though you will always be "the baby".

Months 1-6

Months 7-12

You arrived 10 days past your due date. You do things on your own time. Crawling? Eh, I'll wait until I'm almost a year. You want me to walk? Talk to me when I'm about 15 months old. Rolling over? I'll do it once at 3 months, then not again until I'm 7 months.

Those first few months were rough, buddy. We had colic, reflux, milk/soy allergy, eczema, frequent night time wakings. Daddy and I were EXHAUSTED! Those months feel like a big blur. I'm not exactly sure how we got here. Once separation anxiety hit, it was so hard to get anything accomplished. If you even thought we might be leaving (you know, we changed the position of our legs as we sat on the floor), you started to scream.

But then you started crawling. Oh, glorious crawling! You were able to follow us where we went. Sometimes throwing yourself out Superman style once you got to us and felt you should be picked up. Your whole attitude changed once you were on the go. Even Miss Kimberly said you were a totally different child. Now you just chased her into the kitchen when she left a room you were in. Her son even made the comment to Daddy today, "I can't remember the last time I heard Gavin cry." Music to my ears.

You continue to be my sensitive boy. Loud noises frighten you and anything louder than an inside voice has you "Uhhh, uhh!!" looking me in the eyes, needing to know what that noise was and who made it. If I don't say, "It's okay, it was just....." you continue to look at me and make distress noises. You do not like when we raise our voice at the dog (or yell at him because he is trying to get something he isn't supposed to have) or if Hunter gets into trouble. This typically causes you to cry, big, sad tears.

Books, balls, bubbles and putting things in/out of containers are currently your favorite activities. When we are in your rocking chair you constantly request "boo(k)", even after we've read 5 and the lights are now out. If you even see the bubble container or wand "bubble! bubble!" (this makes for a fun first 40 minutes at The Little Gym because you see the bubble container the whole time and constantly ask for them).

Transitioning to a hard top, small spout sippy cup is not going well. You will take the soft nipple sippy cups no problem. Bottles will not be hard to throw out, but those sippy cups are basically bottles, just flatter nipples.

Your word count/environmental-animal noises is: ball, book, bubble, mama, dada, buhbuh, Hunter, woof, roar, uh oh, hat, on, night-night, bye, hi, hello, nana, bank (blankie), door, duck, baba, tree, that. You will imitate words (the other day you imitated "summer" during a Frozen song in the car that you hear a billion times a week). You can follow simple commands with and without gestural cues, you respond to "come up/come here/sit down", you look for things when asked, "Where's ____". You will sign more/eat occasionally. If I wait for you to do one after modeling it for you, you will quickly sign it.

You still suffer from eczema. It can get so bad. Reflux is gone. It appears you milk allergy may be gone, but I'm not 100% sure.

Gross motor wise, you will get in and play in high knees, can pull to a stand (but your feet are facing out when you stand up), and can walk with max assistance. You are crawling and are super fast.

You are sleeping through the night, to about 4/4:30 (occasionally later, usually when it's Daddy's turn to get up with you), but then you go back to sleep after your milk until at least 6. Sometimes around 2:30/3, you begin to cry/whine in your crib, but it's usually because you have wedged yourself in a weird angle and can't roll out of it without hitting the side of the crib. You work it our yourself. You love sleeping with your lovey blanket.

We've also made it a year in cloth diapers! Woohoo!

How can you not think a booty like that is cute?

Your birthday party was a blast! We missed a lot of our friends because they fell victim to illness, but we still had a bunch of our other friends! You hate the parachute, even with Hunter sitting on it with you. The cake wasn't a big hit; you weren't a fan of how sweet it was (or the fact that your hands were messy). But overall, it was great and you loved being with family and friends!

First broken bone

If I had to place bets, I would have bet Gavin would be the first one to break a bone. I would have lost money. Hunter broke his arm last Friday, doing what he does best, tripping over his own feet. I've never claimed he is my most graceful child. He is clumsy and runs into walls and door frames on an hourly basis.

He was in his The Little Gym class doing extreme sports, running into the mats on the wall, trying to run up them, doing backwards rolls off of the donut, etc. No injuries. He goes to run to the wall as instructed, trips over his own feet, and with a straight arm tried to catch himself. He told me, "I landed with my arm straight, then it bent. Then I made it straight to stand up, but when I pushed on it, it bent again." This came as we were in the pediatrician's office. When he first came out (I didn't see the fall, the 11 month old loves my attention during Hunter's class), he was crying and holding his arm. He had been in class about 50 minutes and had had preschool right before class. He is usually pretty tired by this point. I thought he was hurt, but also being tired made him cry a little more. So I asked him if he was ready to go home or go back into class. He walked back into class holding his arm (read: mommy fail). By the time class was over (maybe 10 minutes or less later), he came out still holding his arm and was crying again. He was also shaking and chattering his teeth.

We got all his stuff on, Miss Mindy carried Gavin to the car so I could carry Hunter. As I was heading to his pediatrician's office (this building has x-ray and ortho in it) I called to make sure they could fit us in. The office was able to and my favorite pediatrician was doing all the same day "sick" appointments. By the time Dr. Scott was walking in, Carl had arrived from work. Dr. Scott said it could either be a fracture or a nurse's maid arm. He was not comfortable doing the maneuver until he knew for sure there was not a break. We were sent to x-ray and Dr. Scott instructed the radiologist to do a wet read (they read the x-ray right away). We went back up to the ped's office. As we were sitting in the room, I could hear Dr. Scott on the phone calling down to ortho saying there was a four year old with a broken arm. Sigh.

Dr. Scott was able to get ortho to fit us in before they left for the day (it was almost 4:30 and their last patient is usually 4). Since it was a fresh break, we couldn't get a cast as they had to account for the swelling. They splinted his arm and had us come back a week later for the cast. While they were splinting his arm, Dr. Scott came down to check on Hunter and speak with the ortho about his plan for Hunter. Did I mention how much I love Dr. Scott and his practice?!

We went back a week later to get his cast on. The did another x-ray to make sure how they had his arm set in the splint was working. His little elbow had a bruise and was still pretty swollen. He picked white for his cast (which glows in the dark) because he wants to make an Ironman arm out of his cast.