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.

Gavin at 11 months

Ahhh! This chunkamonk will turn 1 next month! How did this happen? The saying is so true, "The days are long, but the years are short." Guess I need to start getting the invitations for his party ready!

At 11 months....
-Your words are: dada, bubu (our nickname for Hunter), Hunter, baba (bottle), bubble, hi, hello, tree (approximation), book, ball, mama, nana (banana), night-night (approximation). You make a dinosaur noise, a dog noise, and continue to use "uh oh" appropriately. You yell for dada and sometimes mama when you are in your crib. You are also imitating a lot of words, but will not use them on your own. You imitated "Keykey" (Kaylee's nickname), heater, hat, and some others that I can't remember.
-You were put on a diet by one of the nurse practitioners at our pediatrician's office. You were throwing up what appeared to be randomly, then were your happy self. No fever, no diarrhea, just vomit. Carl took you in and she said you were getting entirely too much formula with how much table food you eat. She wanted three, 4 ounces bottles a day. 4 ounces doesn't cut it for you in the morning and before bed, so we do 6 ounces at those feedings and a 4 ounce bottle at lunch. This has worked amazingly! No more vomiting, no more reflux. They had filled a prescription for Zyntac, but since it cleared up on its own, we never gave you the medicine.
-You are crawling! Slow and steady. You are still working on the muscle movement memory, but you can. You also can get back into a sitting position from your belly.
-We had to move your crib down. You were fighting your nap and were rolling all over your bed. You sat up in the corner and realized you could reach the top rail. You pulled yourself up! I watched the whole thing on the monitor. You were so proud of yourself when I walked in. Stinker!
-You are so dramatic! The other morning, you had pooped, so we had to go get your wipes out of the dryer. You were so mad that I wasn't taking you into our room to snuggle, you threw a fit. You kept reaching towards the door and yelling, "Dada!" You love to throw your head and body backwards when you are angry. We have to tell you "no" very sternly to try to teach you that it's not okay (one day you are going to crack your head open!).
-We are in the thick of separation anxiety! We can't walk an inch from you without you crying.
-You continue to love Hunter, but get jealous if he sits in our lap. You will come over to us and try to push Hunter out or climb over top of him to get in our lap.
-You had your first hair cut this week. Your hair was a hot mess; it is very thin and you have two cowlicks. There was nothing we could do (except maybe put gel in your hair) to tame the wildness! So, we cut it. You look more like a little boy now.

His hair actually isn't that bad in these pictures

-You are cutting your two bottom molars. That will put your teeth count to 10. Hopefully the top two cut soon so we can just get it all over with, ha.

My next post in your development will be me saying good-bye to a baby and hello to a toddler. Wahhh!

Christmas and New Year's Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas. This year, I took off the Tuesday and Wednesday before Christmas and already have Fridays off. It was nice to spend so much time with the boys.

On Christmas Eve, we let the boys open the gifts they got for each other. Gavin "picked out" a blue stuffed owl (to match Hunter's pink one) and Hunter picked out a stuffed dinosaur for Gavin. They both took their animals to bed with them.

We keep Christmas simple for the kids. Hunter got his Roboraptor he had been asking for and two books from Santa and then a game, How To Train Your Dragon 2 (which I got the wrong one, mommy fail, but we went and got the right one), and an Ironman action figure. Gavin got a ride on toy (one that was Hunter's, then Charlotte borrowed it for a while, and now it's back here), a music shaker, and a book from Santa. We got him a book, a shape sorter, and a ball tower. They were spoiled by our families! They brought home lots of clothes, toys, and books! Hunter has a huge dinosaur stuffed animal (almost as tall as he is) that sleeps in his bed every night.

He does not like Roboraptor and makes this face with, "Uhhh!" when he hears it

I got an early Christmas present in December (not by choice). We bought a new (to us) car. My car was totaled in an accident (I'll write a post later once every thing is totally finished with it) that was the fault of the lady behind me (not paying attention).

On New Year's Eve, we went to Harry and Kelly's once we got off of work. We go there every year, but seem to leave earlier every year (must be getting old.... or just have too young of kids, ha). Hunter has a blast playing with Emma and Alyssa and Gavin just enjoys watching them run around. Hunter got to enjoy sparklers for the first time.

Family pictures

We had our family pictures taken again this year (always at Christmas, for our card). We used Jenni Lee Photography. I'm in love with our pictures! I can't wait to have them framed!

And what a difference a year makes. This was last Christmas...

Gavin at 10 months

Only 2 months until this little (big) guy is a year old! How can that be?! It goes even faster with the second baby! At 10 months...

-We are still fighting your eczema. Some days are good and others are really not good. Right when I think it's under control, your leg will go crazy. It's usually your right one. I'm really hoping you grow out of it, or just get small spots like your big brother, but I'm thinking that this will likely be a life long thing for you.
-Your reflux has been acting up the past few weeks. This usually means a new tooth is coming, or you're growing. I don't see any new teeth, but you have had some extra drool (compared to normal).
-You now have 8 teeth, 4 on the top, 4 on the bottom.
-You're clapping your hands- to "If you're happy and you know it...", when someone says, "Yay Gavin!", or when you think you've done something worthy of celebration (like sticking a piece of food in your mouth).
-You've been doing "so big" for a while, but you will do it on cue every time now. Or when you've done something worthy of celebration (like sticking a piece of food in your mouth). This is how it goes, food goes in, raise your arms. Food goes in, clap and smile huge.
-You are pointing at things. Sometimes you can isolate your pointer finger, but mostly it's with your whole fist. You will point to it, vocalize, look at me (or daddy) to make sure we are looking at whatever it is you are pointing at, then look back at it.
-You are finally going to your sitter without crying. Some mornings you even lean to her when you're ready for her to pick you up. This morning you waved bye-bye to Hunter and me as we left. Thank you for making morning drop off easier (both on me and I'm sure on Miss Kimberly).
-You will scoot on your butt to get to places. You do have a lot of mass to move. Still trying to figure out the whole crawling thing, but you really want to.
-You are babbling up a storm. I hear new vowels and consonants and combinations all the time. No new true words.
-You are pulling yourself to a stand, with support (you don't have the greatest balance, so we have to make sure we are behind you when you do this).
-You absolutely love the Christmas lights. When we went to Christmas Town, you just "Oooh" and "Ahhed" at all of them!
-You will dance as soon as you hear music. You stop what you are doing and dance.
-Your new favorite game is "fetch whatever I've thrown over the side of wherever I am". Yesterday, you were in the shopping cart at the store and you had your hat. You looked at me and said, "Uh oh!" and threw your hat over the side of the cart. This entertained you the whole time we were there.

You are changing all the time. You have become so happy and playful. You continue to adore your big brother and your daddy. Mommy will do if Daddy isn't around or if you have hurt yourself while on Daddy's watch. You are also very sensitive to sounds (like sneezing) and to being told "no". You would have thought we told you that you could no longer eat with the reaction to loud noises and no.

Sorry it's blurry... he doesn't sit still. This is the face he makes as soon as he sees the flash on the camera

Hunter's Parent-Teacher Conference

It's always nice to have parent-teacher conferences. I get to see what Hunter has been up to and get an idea as to where he is academically, socially, and developmentally. Hunter is my little problem solver and has a mind for math and science. His teacher said he loves to learn and if he doesn't know the answer to something, he does his best to figure it out (either independently or asking the teacher for help). He loves doing school work and will often pretend he is doing his phonics book here at home (with a coloring book, a work book we have here, etc.). I love how much he loves his school. Carl and I have nothing but positive feedback for his school!

At each conference, the teacher does an interview and then looks at the academic development. We get this in a cute little envelope (usually with his hand print).

His teacher then asked him to write the alphabet, his numbers, and draw shapes. I'm very impressed with his writing skills and fine motor development.

He asked me how to spell my name. When I gave him a compliment as to how well he wrote 'f' he said, "I know. It's because I'm in a phonics book."

The silly boy himself...