Carter - Twelve Months

12 months.  One Year.  I just can’t believe it.  We’ve said goodbye to the newborn and infant stage and are welcoming toddlerhood with open arms.   I can’t wait to watch Carter grow into the person he’s going to be.  The past year has been by far the best of my life because of this little guy (and has also been the quickest year of my life).  I can hardly remember him as a newborn these days!

Diapers

Still wearing 3’s.

Shoe Size

3 1/2 wide. He only has one pair of shoes and he wears them all the time. This is why I got brown shoes. They go with everything!

Clothes

There are still 9 month clothes that he wears, but he has just recently started wearing 12 month clothes.  They’re still a bit big on him, but they are wearable.  He got a lot of 12 month clothes for his birthday so we’re trying to start wearing those.  But there are still so many 9 month clothes that still fit too.  It appears, however, that he’s finally wearing his age!  He’s been behind his whole life and thanks to the growth spurt he’s going through right now (see below), we can finally wear the right clothes!

Feeding

Feedings will change once we go to his one year appointment.  We’ll switch from formula to whole milk (kinda dreading that because I’m not sure if he’ll like it or not) and he’ll begin to join us for our three meals a day with some snacks in between instead of him eating separately and more often.  I’m sure we’ll still puree some of his foods for a little bit (depends on what pediatrician tells us to do), but we’ll also begin making him actually eat a green bean instead of having it blended all the time.  We’ve tried to get him to eat string cheese, but he doesn’t like it.  We’re going to try shredded cheese to see if that’s any better.  He also started eating ham and loves it.  He will sometimes eat turkey sandwich meat, but he doesn’t really like the texture so it’s a 50/50 shot on whether he’ll eat it or just throw it.  He began eating bananas too.  He was hesitant at first because of the texture of it (I really don’t think he likes things that are sticky) but he loves them now.  Also worthy to note, he hit a growth spurt about a week before his birthday and it’s still ongoing.  He is eating everything in sight.  We’re just doing our best to try to make sure he’s not eating significant amounts of puffs or some snack related things like that.  If he wants to eat all day, it’s going to be fruits and veggies and protein!  Oh and we tried eggs for breakfast the morning of his birthday and he was NOT a fan.  I’m going to keep trying with that.   Lots of changes coming once we go to his appointment!

Sleep

Carter is still a 12 hour/night sleeper with two naps that last anywhere from 1.5-2 hours.  The only exception to this is the nap at MDO.  That nap is usually between 20-45 minutes.  In his 12th month, he must have had a growth spurt or something because he was sleeping ALL THE TIME.  His naps were over 2 hours each and he frequently had to be woken up in the morning as late as 9:15am!  This lasted about a week or two.  Then his naps got to where they were about an hour or an hour and 15 minutes instead of the normal hour and a half or more.  I am still reading the Babywise book series and am currently reading “Pretoddler-wise”.  That book talks about growth spurts and  how at his age, some pretoddlers decrease the time of the nap because they are hungry and their little bodies are ready for more table food and more calories than they had been getting as a baby.  We tested this theory and started giving Carter a mid-morning snack right before his first nap.  It’s working well so far.  His naps went back to being 1.5-2 hours in length. 

The only other thing notable regarding sleep is that his nighttime sleep routine changed about halfway through the month.  Carter used to eat his bottle while being read to and then after the bottle was gone, he would cuddle for about 5 minutes or so (unless dad was the one putting him down and they would play and tickle each other for 5 minutes) but then he would go in the crib.  He wouldn’t fall asleep immediately, but he would play with his stuffed animals for about 15-30 minutes and then would go to sleep.  But now he no longer does this.  He has gotten to where he throws his bottle away and then desperately wants to be put in the floor to play.  Of course we won’t allow that though.  Bed time is for sleeping, not a few extra minutes of playing with toys.  So instead of cuddling or playing with us, he cries because he wants to go to the floor to walk around.  Since we don’t let him do that, he goes straight to the crib and then he’ll cry when we leave the room for a good 5-10 minutes.  He has NEVER done this before.  I am HATING this!!

**UPDATE 12/30/12 - This stage ended already.  He still takes a bit to fall asleep, but he lets us cuddle and play with him a bit before bed again.**

Waketime

Waketimes consist of one thing and one thing only these days:  walking.  Carter loves to walk all over the house.  He frequently will stop to play with something but he is constantly testing how far he walks and what he can do while he’s walking (such as holding onto something without dropping it and walking at the same time).  He was so proud of himself the first time he was able to walk a few steps, stop, turn around, and then walk back.  All without falling.  Mommy was pretty proud of him too.  I think he could just walk around the house for hours.  Seriously.

Mother’s Day Out

Nothing interesting to note in this area.  He still goes two days a week from 9-1pm.  On December 18, the kids were all asked to bring one wrapped gift to a birthday party for Jesus during which the kids took to the nativity set in the church and put next to the manger.  In reality, these gifts are all going to families in need.  Carter gave baby Jesus some hooded bath towels :)  Last week was the last week at MDO for the holidays so Carter didn’t have school all week AND I didn’t have to work.  Also, Justin was home from work too!  Lots of family time this week!!!

Statistics

Carter’s 12 month appointment isn’t until January 2nd.  I’m a little irate about it.  Don’t get me started.  I’ll come back and update this section after his appointment.  My guess is that by that appointment he’ll be around 21lbs (which is the 25th percentile).  Height is much harder to measure.  If I had to guess, I’d say around 29 or 30 inches (about the 30th percentile).  Short and skinny!

UPDATE:  We went to Carter’s appointment yesterday.  Carter was 30.5 inches long (75th percentile) and weighed 21.6lbs. (25th percentile).  Our pediatrician even asked what heights Justin and I were and we told him and then he told us that we may be looking up to our son when he’s older.  It’s still too early to be set in stone, their height is more predictable around 2 years old, but at the rate Carter’s height has been, he’s most likely going to be taller than us.  His head was 18 inches around which is also the 25th percentile.  I thought he’d be short and skinny but it turns out he’s tall and skinny :)

Abilities

On his 11 month birthday, he took his first step without holding onto anything.  He stood for a little bit afterward but then fell.  The next day he took 3 or 4 steps and he’s been increasing the number of steps he can take ever since.  Now he can walk across our whole house and back without falling.  The only thing, as of about 3/4 of the way through his 12th month, that he couldn’t do was stand up on his own from the ground.  He always has to pull himself to a standing position by pulling on me or a chair or a table or something like that.  Once he was pulled up, he could walk for a long time.  On the morning of December 20th (at 11 months 3 week sold) I saw him walk to his sippy cup (it was on the ground), squat down to pick it up and then stood right back up.  This doesn’t seem like a big deal but it was the first time that he was able to do that!  Starting to use those leg muscles!

He said “mama” for the first time while I was in NYC with my sister (on November 30th to be exact).  He was 11 months and a couple of days old.  Took him FOREVER to say it and I guess he was saying it because I wasn’t there and he was wondering where that lady that says “mama” to him all the time was :)  You can see a video of it here.

He also started waving.  I have been working on this with him forever.  After bathtime, like clockwork, I wrap him up in his towel and we leave the bathtub and stop in front of the mirror.  I wave in the mirror and say “hey” so he can see my hand.  Seems like months now he just stared at me and never tried it.  He finally started trying it and now waves (mostly with his left hand - kind of wondering if he’ll be a lefty like his Papa) really fast, almost like he’s going to hurt you if he hit you with his hand.

As far as speaking goes, Carter can say multiple things now.  But what I’m most proud of is not what he says, but that he tries to say everything you get him to say.  During bathtime, we go over colors.  He has a ton of alphabet letters that he plays with in the tub and they’re all different colors.  I try to focus on the main colors; blue, red, green and yellow.  I think blue is his favorite color because that’s the letter he was trying to repeat first.  I would pick up the letter and say “blue” and he would stare at my mouth when I say it then he says “bu bu bu bu” trying to say blue.  Justin noticed this week that Carter keeps saying “yea yea yea yea”.  We were confused until just last night I was in the bath with him and we were working on “yellow”.  I realized that this is probably what he was trying to say.  Granted, he has no idea what the colors actually are.  He’s only repeating what I’m saying.  But I’m just so happy he is trying to say new things!  Oh and he also says “hey” when he waves because that’s what I say in the mirror as I wave at him.

Teething

He cut tooth number 8 on December 4th.  I can’t believe he has 8 teeth.  Early teether for sure!  Also, towards the end of the month, he started putting his index finger WAY in the back of his mouth.  Me and Dad are wondering if a molar is coming in.  His attitude is great though and I have heard horror stories of molars affecting personality, so if one is coming in, I’ll take it!

Discipline

I made him cry this month :(  I’ve made him cry before by doing things he didn’t want to do (diaper changes, bath time, putting in a car seat, etc.), but this month was the first time I made him cry because I was disciplining him.  I was trying to feed him dinner in his high chair.  During dinner, he always drinks a juice and water mixture from his sippy cup and usually drinks it fine with no tantrums or mischief, but this time, he would drink from it and then throw the sippy cup as hard as he could to the floor.  I picked it up and looked at him and told him “No Carter, don’t throw the cup on the floor”.  I gave it back to him, he took another sip and then threw it again.  I did the same thing but with a little more stern of a look and a slightly harsher tone.  I gave him the cup back and he did it again.  This time, I didn’t pick up the cup but I grabbed his hand (not firmly by any means, just a little squeeze), looked him straight in the eye with my face much closer to him than it was the previous two times and said the same thing again.  This time he started bawling.  I immediately felt so bad, but this is part of parenting.  I know he’s going to cry and get upset in the future when I’m disciplining him, but he must know boundaries.  I’m trying to set good mealtime manners and unfortunately for him, throwing the cup off the table three times after being told no is not acceptable manners. 

Other Notable Things

Carter’s first birthday party was on December 15th and he was such a good boy!  He was shy at first because he was still napping when everyone got there so when he came downstairs, our house was packed (he is usually shy when he’s around someone else for a few minutes until he warms up to them).  Daddy went upstairs to change his clothes and feed him his bottle (he would NEVER have eaten a bottle with so many people around him) and then brought him downstairs.  He was surprised at all the people there saying his name and reaching for him, but he adjusted quickly and started being his normal outgoing self.  He showed off his walking skills a bunch!  We had a great time and he got great gifts! 

Likes

Carter still likes everything I’ve put in this section in the past several months (golf cart rides, being outside, Baby Einstein, puffs and mums, etc.) so I won’t repeat all of them, but will just list the new likes or the likes that seemed the most prevalent this month:

• Walking.  Anywhere and everywhere!
• Remote controls…he loves these so much he got two in his stocking just for him (because mom and dad are honestly sick of not knowing where remotes are since Carter takes them off and leaves them in random locations in the house)
• Talking - he is seriously talking all the time now.  I am so confident that he has babbled every letter in the alphabet, with exception to Q and X of course.
• Teething pacifier and other teething rings
• Eating his shoes. He likes the rubber at the bottom for some reason. When we go to get him out of the car, he almost always has taken his shoe off and is chewing on it. Gross, I know.
• Watching older kids move and play.  He loves watching older kids at church and was following our friends Chase and Allison’s little girl, Brantley, around at his birthday party.
• Doors . Still loves experimenting with opening and closing doors.
• Diapers.  Not diaper changes, just diapers.  He pulls them out of the diaper bag and carries them all over the house.  On Christmas night, we let him watch a Baby Einstein so that I could cut his fingernails (see dislikes).  When I was done we left the room and let him watch his movie.  A few minutes later Justin called me back into the room only to find Carter leaning back in his chair, feet crossed, sucking his thumb on one hand and holding the diaper in the other hand.  So funny!
• Animals.  He’s always loved Gizmo, but he loves ALL dogs and even cats too.  For some reason, animals just crack him up!
• The rollercoaster toy he got from the Smith’s for Christmas.  More posts to come on this later.

Dislikes

• Being put in the car seat first thing in the morning.  On the days that I take him to my MIL’s house for the day, we literally come from upstairs and go straight to the car seat to get in the car and drive to Nana’s.  He doesn’t like this.  He wants to play before leaving.
• Still frequently cries during diaper change time.  He doesn’t like being burdened with diaper changes.  There’s too much world to explore!
• Lord help me…he will NOT let me cut his nails.  He hates it.  Hold the breath scream, hates it.  I can never get all 10 nails in one sitting so it usually happens twice.  I have never even clipped his finger before so I have no idea why he hates it so much!
• Lately he’s been seeming to not like bathtime as much.  He doesn’t play with things like he used to and is starting to whine a bit.  I am really beginning to think it’s because he knows bedtime is next and he really doesn’t want to go to bed (see “Sleep” section above).

Sippy Cup

We use the sippy cup very frequently now for water or apple juice.  The big test will come when we start feeding him whole milk instead of formula.  Once we get him used to that change, we’ll begin using the sippy cup for milk.

Goodbye

Well my friends, I’m impressed if any of you actually read all twelve of these posts.  You deserve an award if you did.  I write these down, not necessarily for readers, but for my own documentation purposes.  As you probably saw from Carter’s birthday party post, I put all of these posts (minus this one of course since he wasn’t 12 months old yet) on a word document and made a little book to put on the table at his party so everyone could see these posts and the pictures with them.  I plan to give this book to Carter when he has his own baby…or maybe before that.  We’ll just see.  I probably won’t give it to him until he’s married or his wife is pregnant.  I’m too afraid that if I give it to him before that, he’ll lose it.  But in addition to doing that for Carter, it is also for me.  Whenever Justin and I decide (or rather, whenever God decides) we’re ready for a 2nd baby, I will probably have forgotten the ways I trained Carter in sleeping, eating, behavior, etc.  It will help to be able to go back and read these posts to see what I did with him so that I can apply that to our next baby!

So needless to say, the monthly posts are over!!  Thanks for hanging in there with us!