Elliott - 12 months old

Here we are at the last monthly update for our sweet Elliott, who turned one last weekend.

Sweet is a great way to describe our little boy. People often ask me if he's always that happy. Mostly. When he's not happy, he is really not happy. But most of the time, he is generously spreading cheer with that big, crazy grin. I think we're entering the third month of virtually non-stop teething with Elliott's sixth tooth just below the surface. Even so, none of his teeth are fully into place, so he looks pretty silly when all of his teeth are showing. I worry a bit that he has my dental genes, which basically means that we should start saving our pennies now.

Those teeth allow Elliott to eat any and everything. He continues to eat the same food as the rest of the family and consistently eats more than Madeleine and close to my portion. He's doing slightly better with the silverware that we introduced last month, though he has a long way to go, and meals are so messy now that he's feeding himself everything. We've also started pulling him straight up to the table without his tray, which does not help the mess factor. On his birthday, I gave him cow's milk for the first time, a bit fearful that he'd reject it. Nope. He downed the entire sippy cup. While he still won't sign for more, he does throw things on the floor, push himself away from the table, and wave his hands forcefully when he is finished.

All of the food is necessary to fuel this very, very, very busy boy. He has surprised me by not taking to walking ahead of his birthday, but I think that is because he wants to move and knows that crawling will get him around quickly. Within the last week, I'd say he's switched to more regular crawling than army crawl, but he definitely reverts to old faithful whenever he's on a mission. He pulls up on any and everything, even walls. And he is a climber. He has crawled up the fireplace hearth and the stool at the bathroom sink. He can also climb both up and down the stairs, though he can't yet get himself into the right position for the descent. He doesn't often stop moving, but when he does, I find that he's sucking his thumb more and more. I'm glad he can use it to soothe himself at sleeping times, but I'm not excited about this habit expanding as we're currently in the process of breaking Madeleine's finger sucking habit.

Elliott still takes two naps a day, but his afternoon nap has gotten noticeably shorter. I'm both excited about and dreading nap consolidation because we'll gain some more freedom from the house while I'll lose some quiet time. Overnight, he generally sleeps from about 7:30/8pm to 7am with earlier wake ups during particularly bad teething times. I'm still nursing Elliott when he wakes up in the morning and before bed, but I plan to have him weaned within the next month. Although I reeeeeeeally hate breastfeeding in the early months and tolerate it the rest of the year, I'm once again finding the end bittersweet. Of course, Elliott's current habit of ending each feeding with a little bite is helping to encourage me.

There is still plenty of babbling going on around here. Pretty much everybody is Dah-dah, and there are certain words that he will repeat. He attempted to say Madeleine the other day, which was both hilarious and adorable. I've been trying to teach him that owls say hoo-hoo, and he seems to say "ow" and "hooooo." I'm not sure if I have a higher standard or his language is just more muffled than Madeleine's was at this age, but I'm not really ready to say that he has his first word.

I can hardly believe I'm saying it, but Elliott is more a toddler every day. He loves spending chunks of time looking at books (but will not sit still to listen to them) and playing. He likes playing games and laughing at silly songs or funny faces. He loves riding the plasma car inside and giraffe tike outside. We do laugh that he's part dog because he loves to find and chew on shoes - gross. On the other hand, it was so fun to see him soak up all of the attention he received on his birthday and just bask in the celebration.

When my big (90th percentile for height and 75th for weight) boy tries to wiggle from my arms to go and explore, it's hard for me to believe that it was a year ago that a short and intense morning labor brought our sweet boy into this world. I just want to hold his soft, plump baby skin in my arms forever.

The fox that used to be the size of Elliott...well, isn't anymore.