Fourteen Months

I bet you guys thought I wasn’t ever going to return.  I really haven’t been motivated to blog about anything lately, including a thirteen month old post (I know I am a horrible Mom), so that is the reason for my long hiatus.  I don’t know if I will become more motivated in the near future but I promise to make sure I at least post about Smidgel.  In this post I will include his milestones from both months (thirteen and fourteen months).

The above photois Smidgel at thirteen months.  I haven’t had a chance to take his fourteen month photo yet but I will add that once I do so.  Smidgel turned fourteen months old yesterday.  I finally don’t feel like time is flying by as the last two months have gone by at a normal pace.  During his thirteenth month he started cutting four more teeth, all on top.  He also starting walking more regularly and was splitting his time between crawling and walking.  His interest in the animals really started to peak during his thirteenth month.  For the most part he is nice to them but he does get overzealous at times and we have to remind him to be nice.  It is a work in progress but with his new found interest in the animals he has finally lost interest in their water!!!  We also found out that he loves the trampoline and swings.

Smidgel’s fourteenth month brought a little boy on the move.  He rarely crawls now (he only crawls when he is outside and is unsure of his footing) and unless he is sleeping he is constantly moving.  Speaking of sleeping, he has really started to fight his afternoon nap.  He probably only takes it once every three to four days.  We had planned on converting him over to one nap a day at the beginning of the year but if this keeps up, we may be doing that earlier than planned.  His vocabulary has really peaked this month as well.  The words that he has are: mama, dada, sit (which sounds like shit, unless he is saying sit down), more, what’s that, I love you and banana (nana).  I think that he has started to say shoe and night night but I haven’t confirmed them as of yet.  On top of all that he can show you where his feet and nose are.  We are working on identifying his ear but that is taking some time.  He can’t say dog or cat yet but he can tell you what they say.  This month he has also become obsessed with books.  I think that he pulls all his books off his bookshelf daily.  I will take that over him taking everything off his changing table.  Most nights you will find him walking around with a book and sitting down every couple of minutes to look at the pictures.  Now that he loves his books I don’t have to be as concerned with our books.  We have however had to push the couch back so that the built in bookshelf in the living room is covered.  Until I can ensure that he will always be nice to the books our photo albums and yearbooks must be protected.  In the last week he hasn’t been eating well but we have found he will continue to eat if you give him a fork.  I guess he is just trying to be independent.  We are trying to give him the opportunity to practice with his fork during most meals.

The last time we were in North Carolina my Mom and I took him to a playground.  They had bucket swings so he had a blast swinging.   

They also had a little people’s playground so we were able to get him acquainted with that.  He was a bit unsure of everything but that is because he isn’t completely stable on his feet quite yet.  I did however get my most favorite picture to date of him while he was playing on the playground.

Riding in the car hasn’t been pleasant the last couple of weeks.  Most of the time when we are going places it is at least an hour one way.  Smidgel starts to get tired but he really fights falling asleep.  We had reverted to giving him a pacifier to settle him down and ensure that he gets some sleep, as we almost always plan a trip around nap time.  The last three times we have been in the car we haven’t given him the pacifier and we pretty much spend the ride with him screaming.  He isn’t crying, he is just squirming in his carseat and trying to escape.  I could handle it for short trips but for an hour it becomes nerve racking and for that reason I am not looking forward to our next car ride to North Carolina, which we have quite a few of in November.  The four teeth he starting cutting in his thirteenth month are finally through so Smidgel officially has twelve teeth.  I think that’s it for the month so I leave you with the adorable face I get to look at all day, every day!

STEPS!!!

That’s right, he has taken his first steps!!  He did it last night and we were able to catch it on video.  Give me until tonight to upload the video (as it takes between two and three hours on my slow as molasses internet to upload a video) and I will add it to this post.  Way to go Smidgel!!!

Updated to add:

It is sideways because apparently if you hold our video camera to where it is parallel to the ground instead of perpendicular it shoots the video that way, even though it does not appear that way on the screen when you are shooting it. I have no clue how to flip the video or if there is even a way to do so. But there you have it, sideways walking.

11 Months Old

Smidgel turned eleven months old on Saturday.  We had a great month and it was filled with tons of new things.  At the end of last month, he loved to play Patty Cake and Peek-A-Boo, but only when prompted.  This month he would just start doing them out of the blue and get a huge smile on his face waiting for you to join in.  Just like last month he isn’t as interested in his toys as he is with the stuff we have laying around the house.  I have had to move stuff off the first shelf of the bookshelf because he discovered all the photo albums.  He has also learned to lift the top to the toilet seat so that he can play in the water.  The majority of the time he ends up closing it on his hand and then screaming because his hand is trapped.  He also will not leave the dogs water alone and it is starting to drive me crazy.  The only other slightly annoying thing that has come about this month is that he throws a tantrum (screams and cries) when you take something away from him or stop him from doing something.  I figure it is just the beginning of what is to come so I will deal with it.  

We have been to the pool a few more times since last month and he still loves when we go.  We haven’t gone as often as I have wanted to but hopefully that will change over the rest of the summer. 

He has conquered the stairs, both up and down.  We have to get him started coming down but once he gets going he has no problem.  If I don’t put the gate up on the stairs first thing in the morning that is the first thing he does once he is done drinking his milk.  He will actually go over to the stairs and wait for me to get up.  Once I get up to come and get him he high tails it up the stairs.  I have tried a couple of times to just wait him out but if I take too long, he starts going up and peers through the stair rails.  If I don’t get up or when I peek to see where he is, he starts going anyways. 

On July 4th we took Smidgel to the carnival that was in town.  It was a small carnival but they did have a carousel that he could ride.  I had to go on with him because Boo-Boo can’t do rides that go in circles.  I was able to get him to do his screaming thing while we were riding which ws a lot of fun.  He had a great time and dad took some great pictures. 

He is still a wonderful eater but he has gotten much messier.  We have been letting him practice with a spoon and sometimes it just gets out of hand. 

There have been a couple of times that I have thought to myself, “why did I even get you dressed before coming down for lunch?  I should have just brought you down in your diaper, let you eat and then put your clothes on”.  It is about time for us to do laundry and I know that I am going to have to stain treat pretty much every piece.

A few other tidbits and milestones.  He has gone out the doggie door to get to his father once.  He looks out it regularly but hasn’t gone out it but that one time.  He has started to stand up from the floor without holding onto anything.  He stands there for a few minutes before falling to the ground.  He hasn’t taken a step yet but we both think that walking is only a week or so away.  He walks all over the place with his walker, as long as it doesn’t get stopped by something.  We have offically stopped using a bottle (unless all the cups are dirty in the morning and I am too lazy to clean them) and he goes to bed with his cup now.  He did really well last month with only getting his pacifier at nap time and bed time.  We were supposed to start transitioning to not using the pacifier at all this month but that isn’t going so well.  He does great with not having it during naps but so far he has gone to bed with it each night.  I am okay with him having it at bed time for now.  I believe that is all for this month…only one more month to go before our little man is ONE!!!  I will be adding videos from the last month to his page over the next couple of weeks.  I will continue to add other videos as we take them so continue to check back there.

10 Months Old

Smidgel is ten months old today.  It has been a really great month that was filled with lots of laughs accompanied by big smiles, a couple of bumps and bruises and of course all kinds of new things. 

He has become a little less interested in his toys and is more interested in everything we have laying around the house.  I had been keeping him in the living room and just putting up a gate but he likes to have free reign of the house.  As long as I pick up the water and the cat food (he tries to eat it) we are good to go.  He spends most of his time pulling the golf clubs out of the bag, following the dogs to the doggie door, looking at himself in the washer and dryer or pulling everything off of my bedside table. 

We have had to get back into the habit of putting the toilet seats down or we will find him playing in the water.  The stairs have only been an issue once and I hope it will stay that way (unlikely if his grandmother and uncle continue to teach him how to climb them).  So far he hasn’t gotten into all the photos and books we have on our built in bookshelf in the living room.  We hope that because of the way we have the living room set up he won’t realize all that stuff is there.  If we have him on the couch he wrestles with us to get over to the blinds.  Once he is there he stands up on the armrest and tries to hang on the blinds.  I was letting him do it but it was starting to get old so we have put a stop to that.

He loves his bath time and we have been to the pool twice now.  He loves the pool, which I am thrilled about.  Both times that we have gone he has had a great time.  When we take him out of his floatie he tries to stick his face in the water.  I have let him do it a couple of times and he just sticks it in and comes back up, it is crazy.  Swimming was a huge part of my childhood so I am very excited that it seems he will be a natural in the water.  Bath time is fun and games now but he keeps getting himself in trouble because he tries to stand up in the tub.  He spends most of his time staring at the running water. 

Some other new little tidbits are that he is still a great eater but once he is done he starts throwing his food and cup on the floor.  You have to quickly remove everything from his tray or the floor will be littered with food.  It is quite annoying because he is totally doing it on purpose.  I say that because he looks at us straight in the eyes, laughs and grabs another handfull.  Another annoying thing he has begun the last couple of weeks is sticking his fingers down his troat.  I don’t know why he is doing it but he has made himself puke twice.  We have figured out that if we just ignore him he will stop.  He has transitioned over to a sippy cup, once we found on he liked.  We still give him a bottle when we put him to sleep but that is the only time that he gets one now.  He is a huge copy cat and when we take family trips in the car he spends most of it screaming.  Why you may ask?  Because his father says “ahhhhhhhhhhh, scary Mommy driver” so Smidgel copies him.  It is really quite humerous and I will have to get Boo-Boo to record it on our new video camera here soon.  He is doing much better with CJ now and only sent him into one small crying fit last weekend when we were in North Carolina.  The majority of the time he either ignored him, played nicely or listened when we told him to be nice.

We have decided that this month he is only going to be allowed his pacifier when he is taking a nap or going to sleep.  We implemented that today and he did great, ever when we left the house.  Hopefully next month we can just do away with it all together.  Last but not least, he has another tooth!  That’s all for this month, only two more months and my little man will be ONE!!  Maybe we will be walking by this time next month…

P.S. You can track Smidgel’s growth through his page that can be found at the top of my blog.