13 Months Old

Nathan,
You are 13 months old! I'm sure I say this every single month, but I am LOVING this stage. You are transforming from a baby to a toddler right before our eyes, and it is fascinating to see. You are learning new things every single day. I feel like a light switch turned on in your brain on your first birthday, and suddenly everything makes sense to you and you are understanding way more than I thought you were. Life is just so, so fun right now.

About the time we left for our cruise, you turned into a full time walker. I hardly ever see you crawling anymore. You walk everywhere and run sometimes too. Life is easier now that you can walk. I can get you out of your car seat and put you down and you'll hold my finger and we walk together instead of me carrying you. It's a little slower, but you're toddling is too adorable to pass up. You can walk much faster if you are holding onto someone's finger, so you look around to grab on when there is somewhere you want to go. Unfortunately, you only like to hold my hand if we are going in the direction you want to go. If I try to get you to go somewhere else, you'll reach up with your other hand to push mine away, then you just sit down and throw a little fit. You forget that I'm still bigger, and I can scoop you up to get where we need to go. This month you also figured out how to go from a sitting position to standing by yourself.

 
Your receptive vocabulary went through the roof this month, or at least you are communicating with us enough that we know you are understanding what we say. You know the meaning of diaper, paci, high chair, walk, outside, sit down, no, no touch, dog, kitty, daddy, mama, Grammy, Papa Joe, high five, bottle, drink, bye bye, nose, mouth, eyes, up, elephant (your little blue stuffed one), and I know there are more that I can't think of. I'm also sure there is more you understand that we don't realize you understand too. You still don't say too many words. You can say, Dada, mama, kitty, dog, hi, and I caught you saying drink once, but that's not consistent. Every single day we catch you showing more understanding and communicating more effectively with us.

Your favorite toys right now are your elephant ball toy, your scooter, dump truck, and tractor. You sit on your dump truck and scoot backwards while you say vroom. Super cute. You still adore being outside, and your favorite outside activity is finding all of Rhapsody's toys and taking them to her. We also blow bubbles and play on your slide pretty often. You love to watch Sesame Street and start dancing when you hear the theme song. Actually, you dance to any music you hear now a days. We have even caught you swaying to the melody of our chiming clock. It is too cute.


Summer time is a fun time with you. We've gone to the splash pad a few times, and we've been swimming once too.

You are still a great sleeper. You sleep from 7:30-8:00 to about 6:00-7:00 and are still taking two naps a day. Every once in awhile you'll refuse to sleep during your afternoon nap, and you'll just play in your crib. You are mostly off the bottle. Occasionally you'll still have one at breakfast or bedtime, but mostly you drink your milk out of a sippy cup. You rarely eat baby food anymore and are almost totally eating table food. I'm still figuring out nutritious, easy meals for you especially for lunch. Thankfully, you are not too picky.
For breakfast your favorites are yogurt, fresh fruit, cereal bars, waffles, and eggs
For lunch we've tried grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, meat sticks, macaroni and cheese, ravioli etc. You also usually have some veggies, fresh fruit, and cheese with your lunch.
You are eating whatever I cook for supper, so there's a lot of variety. Your daddy is a pasta lover so you eat a lot of that. You went nuts over the manicotti I made the other night. I know you ate more than I did!
You have milk with every meal and another 6 oz at bedtime. Honestly you are not a huge milk fan (unless it's in a bottle). You prefer water or juice most of the time.

You weigh about 23 lbs and wear 12 month, 12-18 and 18 month clothes and a size 4 diaper. We recently got you a new car seat too. You are growing up!

We started doing blanket time this month, and you are doing great at it. We set the timer together and then you sit on your blanket and play with your special blanket time toys until the timer goes off. Then we clap and celebrate and you help me clear the timer. I'm so impressed with your obedience and understanding. Sometimes you get tired and will fuss and whine, but you rarely try and get off the blanket. There are several times throughout the day that I see you pointing to your blanket time toys. I think you enjoy it, as much as I do. It's amazing to see my busy, active boy, sitting still and playing quietly for a prolonged period of time!

We are limiting your pacifier use to your crib and in the car. We still let you have it when we aren't at home if you are tired or in a stressful situation (doctor's office, hair cut, church nursery, etc). You know that you have to leave it in your crib and will take it out of your mouth and throw it down when I pick you up. I think sometimes you like to get in your crib and play just so you can have it. I still love to rock you before you go to sleep. We'll grab your blue stuffed elephant and a paci out of your crib and cuddle for a few minutes before I lay you down. It's one of my favorite times with you. 

It's crazy to think about what we were doing last summer and how different you are now! We're just so thankful you are a part of our family.