12 months under my belt. And I kind of suck.

Today, my son is 14+ months old.  If you’re doing the math, this means I’m over two months late writing my little boy’s 1 year blog post.  In the past two months, I’ve somewhat forgotten what he was like at 1 year exactly, so I feel like this blog entry is a poser. I will do my best to remember.  At least I was on top of it enough to take photos of the day he turned 1. 

Here’s my lil’ man on April 3, 2013 enjoying his first real bites of cake.  Sinful cake.  Delicious cake.  One of the reasons I had kids was so I could throw birthday parties with cakes. 

We had a little at home family shindig with some cupcakes I picked up at the store on the way home from work. Just call me Martha Stewart.


I believe he was thinking, “What have I gotten myself into here?!”

I stupidly put on his 12 month tie in these photos, so they were all stained with delicious icing for his actual 1 year photos. 

One thing I’ve learned over the past few months is that it gets progressively harder to take photos of wiggly kids.  I use props to hold his attention – things like hair brushes…

legos…

which he promptly threw at me…

and laughed and clapped about it…

Yeah, no.


Watch JoJo grow (click to expand):


His birthday party, while chaotic, was pretty darn good.  We decided to do a joint birthday party with him and my niece Jocelyn since they’re only two weeks apart and are essentially twins.  Adorable little twins!

We went with a circus theme which, believe it or not, I had a hard time finding an invitation that would include a boy and a girl, so I just made my own.  I love the way they turned out!


The party was held at a gymnastics club where I used to work.  The kids had an absolute blast.  More children showed up than I thought would show, so it was a super crazy day with a packed party room.  Whew!  Regardless of the lack of space, the kids all had a wonderful time, and I think the parents who came also had a great time.  I mean, there were cupcakes and 7-layer dip – how can you have a bad time with that?!

These were seriously the best cupcakes I’ve ever had!  We got 3 dozen cupcakes, and two smash cakes from Wal-Mart for $25.  Yep. 

Choosing a matching bow for the birthday girl.

JoJo was not a fan of wearing a hat.  Poor Zack was not a fan of crying JoJo.

Joss decided to cry when JoJo finally stopped.
He ate his cake with some fava beans and a nice chianti.



Anna got the joy of opening up the gifts once we got home.  The party was too short for us to do it there.  He got a lot of wonderful toys and clothes.



Here are his stats:

Temperament:
Jojo is happy and content about 80% of the day.  The other 20% of the day, he’s insane.  Or, I guess I should say, he’s all boy.  He’s very strong-willed and impatient, and since he’s been in daycare around the older kids, if he doesn’t get what he wants when he wants it, he’s starting to resort to hitting and biting.  I’m nipping this in the bud right away.  Speaking of biting, we’ve been having issues with other kids picking on him in class.  He was coming home with at least two bites/week.  This has gotten better over the past few weeks, but it’s definitely hard as a mom to know that your kid is being picked on – especially when he’s such a sweet little guy. 

Feeding:
I find that Joe’s feeding habits depend on how many teeth are trying to pop out.  I find that prior to a new tooth emerging, he’s a ravenous beast.  Once a tooth pops, he’s not as hungry.  He eats most of what I put in front of him – his favorite food being eggs.  I love eggs because I can grind up spinach, turkey, beans, even broccoli, in a processor and blend them in with the eggs.  He’s none the wiser.  He gobbles them up and has no idea that he’s getting an entire meal in a small serving.  Add some fruit on the side, and voila, every service of what he needs in one simple meal.  Since we’ve had some issues with him having low iron, I try to give him as much spinach as possible, and I’ve also started giving him toddler formula enriched with iron in between his milk servings. 

Sleeping:

Since I sleep-trained him, most nights are pretty great.  He usually only wakes once or twice, if that, and he can generally put himself back to sleep.  There are a few random nights where it’s a bit rough, but he’s pretty much a full-night sleeper.  He does tend to wake up early 7 days/week (around 6:30), but I can sometimes give him a bottle (shame), and he’ll conk out for another hour or two.  This keeps me sane on the weekends ‘cause ain’t nobody got time for waking up at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday.  I’ve also made the decision to NEVER EVER NEVER EVER let him sleep in our bed.  This is solely because I’m regretting all of that time that Anna slept in our bed since she now thinks she’s a permanent bed-buddy.  I’ve tried many tricks to try to get her to sleep on her own – nothing has worked.  I’m open to suggestions if you have any.  I just want to be back in my bed with my husband without a hot, sweaty kid in between kicking me all night long.

Milestones:
JoJo was not really walking at 1 year.  He’d taken a few steps at that point, but he didn’t start truly walking until he was about 13 months.  Now he’s ALL over the place and is nearly running.  He will still drop and crawl for a second when he loses his balance, but then he’s right back up making a dash for it. 

Words:
Mama
Dada
Nana (for Anna)
Uh oh
No (he likes saying this and shaking his head)
Ca for cat

He hasn’t really said anything else since my last update on here.  I guess his focus at this point is on gross motor. 

Health:
His allergy tests from the last visit were inconclusive and basically said he had no known allergies.  That didn’t really explain why he had the nummular eczema.  That cleared up fairly quickly and re-emerges from time to time.  He has a few patches right now, mainly in areas where he sweats (like the crease of his arm near his elbow).   

He had more blood work done at another visit, and that came back showing his iron levels were pretty low.  So, we started giving him that disgusting iron supplement and feeding him more foods with iron and supplementing with fortified toddler formula.  I need to bring him back for another draw to make sure his levels are where they need to be.   

Here are his 1 year stats:
Weight: 19 lbs. 2 oz. (5th percentile)
Height: 2 ft. 6 in. (50th percentile)
Head: 18” (25th percentile)

Size:
He’s wearing 12 – 18 months clothes; size 4 shoes; size 3 and 4 diapers.

Siblings:
Anna has really started taking an active role with her brother.  She can change his diapers, pick him up and carry him, and she helps me make sure he’s safe.  She scours the floors to make sure there are no choking hazards since he puts everything in his mouth, and she’s just a really great big sister.  He’s very lucky!  She still has a lot of jealousy towards him, but that’s to be expected.  She is definitely possessive of me and will get upset when I show him a lot of attention.  Hopefully that won’t last forever.  Or maybe it will.  Yikes!

Some lagniappe photos from April 2013: