Almost one

Can you believe it, just a little over a year ago I was a giant round ball full of baby and now I have a little man nearly walking, talking and I swear nearly ready to move out of the house.  Wow, everyone was right, the past year has gone by so fast!

Here are a few fun facts in William’s world lately:

• The biggest news = NO MORE BOTTLES!!!  William has been sick with a cold (but we’re going to get him checked tomorrow to make sure) and has been refusing the bottle the past 4-5 nights.  So, we’re done with it.  We have put them away and decided he obviously doesn’t want the bottle anymore.  So, no need to wean him off, he gave it up all by himself.  Now, if we could get rid of the nook at naps and na-night, we’ll see…
• He has been back at daycare the last week or so, with Andrew being back at work.  William absolutely LOVES his daycare.  He squeals when we pull into the driveway and starts kicking with excitement and a huge smile on his face.  He even goes to the extreme as if it was his own house, I put him down and he just takes off for the other room, what a stinker.  Sometimes it makes Mommy feel like chop liver, but I really love that he likes it there and feels comfortable.
• He has been quite the mover lately, no more doing the worm, he is full-out crawling and he is FAST.  He can make it across the room and down the hall in seconds, no lie!  Only when he is tired and whiney does he do the worm, it’s rather cute!
• William has also been very versatile with his foods, he has tried everything from spaghetti, cheese tortellini with spinach, turkey & potatoes, tater tot hot dish and more.  He doesn’t seem to be a finicky eater, he just gobbles up whatever you put in front of him!  Although, Mom & Dad have learned a few things.  If we’re going to give him a banana we will make sure its out of sight until he’s done with his other food otherwise he starts to put of a fit until we switch to the banana.  Smart baby!

Birthday party plans are underway for Saturday!

Pants on the ground

Apparently William is taking Farve’s “Pants on the ground” literally and has now applied it to crawling.  We discovered early this week our sweet little man does the “worm” crawl when he has pants ON, which is all the time, however Daddy decided to have him be pant-less early this week and now he is a crawling pro!  He seems to really like not having pants on cruising around the house like he had been crawling like that for months.  His form is perfect and he’s faster than ever…he even made it to the steps faster than we could get the gate up, no spills yet, he was just discovering that it went down with his hands!

Not only is he crawling now as if it were an Olympic sport, but last night when we were on the phone with Auntie Mandy, William was hanging on me and decided to let go.  I wasn’t all that surprised at first as this wasn’t uncommon, but he let go and stood there ALL by himself for about 5-10 seconds and then leaned on me again.  WOW!!  A MAJOR step towards his future of balance and walking independently!

There’s no stopping him now!

As promised here are a fews pics from our cell phones from the last few weeks…

Amazed

Everyday, despite not seeing him much these days, I am amazed at what William is learning.  Just this morning I was watching him play independently with one of his little Leap Frog toys Grandpa and Grandma Zetah bought him.  He went to “spin a letter” and it didn’t make noise so he looked at the side of it and turned it on.  What a little stinker!

Okay, so not only knows how to turn his toys on and off now, which he has done I think for several weeks I just hadn’t seen it yet…he can give high fives, tell you what a lion or cow says and we learned yesterday his dance moves have progressed to look eerily similar to Elvis.  He seems to prefer rock music over others, dancing more to the beat with his one knee jamming out.  He is catching on to things SO fast now, kinda scary we gotta watch what we do/say he’s a little copy cat.

Will had a play date with our old day care on Friday…Andrew brought him over so he could play with his friends.  Needless to say he played for a hard 3 hours, came home and CRASHED!  I can’t wait for him to return when Andrew finds work, he seems to really like it over there.

Hopefully I will have some “spare” time today to put up some recent pics, but I have to be honest, the camera doesn’t come out as often as it used to!

11 months

Will is 11 months old today and has more attitude than ever…here are a few fun things he’s doing these days:

• When Andrew or I ask him “William, what does a lion say?”, he grunts trying to make a Roooaaaar…its pretty freak’n cute!  I will try to get it on video if I can.
• I was reading him his animals book the other day and he also repeated the sound an owl makes, “Who, Who”
• We have begun to get him off formula already and have started adding whole milk to his bottles slowly.  In the next week or so I expect he will be completely off formula.
• He has been down to one bottle per day for a couple weeks already, just his na-night bottle.  He just gets up to have breakfast and has his snack “bottle” in his sippy cup – he downs it in like 1 minute with that thing!
• Other dietary changes the past week included his first hot dog, grilled cheese sandwich, cottage cheese, cheese stick, watered down apple juice.  Instead of giving him baby food we’re beginning to just make him food for dinner.  Its kinda fun cooking for my baby!

I am starting to plan for his BIG first birthday party already.  It’s at our house on 2/27, with an approximate time of 11 a.m. cause he’s so much happier in the morning, it’d be nice if everyone saw him when he’s not so crabby!  So, if anyone has ideas I am open to it, this is obviously the first time I’ve thrown a party for a 1-year-old!

If Will could talk…

He would be saying:

Our Favre-ther who art in Mississippi hallowed be thy name. Thy bowl will come, it will be won, In Miami as it is in the Dome. Give us this Sunday, Our weekly win. Give us touchdown passes, but do not let others pass against us. Lead us not into frustration, but deliver us to the Super Bowl. For thine… is the MVP, the best of the NFC, and the glory of the Purple People Eaters now and forever. Amen!

A few new things…

Last night Will spent a few hours with his Auntie Jody & Uncle Chris while I was in the area for a PC (Pampered Chef) meeting.  I was worried about him being crabby for them cause he was really being a momma’s boy all day, but sounds like he was a good boy, other than the crabbiness we are getting when we lay him down to change his pants these days.  That’s LOADS of fun!  I am open to advice for crabby babies on the changing table…I am getting nothing but screams, arching backs and rolling over.  I am ready to let him roam the house naked!

He began feeding himself.  Just his puffs, some bananas & pears, but it’s a start!  I think he would’ve actually done this a lot earlier had we not given up on him making a mess.  We started giving him puffs several months ago, but he continued to push them off his tray onto the floor, so we stopped for a little while and just restarted and put them in a bowl in between his legs on the floor.  It works MUCH better.  He is double fisting it now and just piling it all into his mouth.  It is rather funny.

Our doctor gave us the go ahead at his 9 month to begin giving him whole milk from 10-12 months.  So, we have gradually started giving him some whole milk this weekend…starting with 1 oz mixed with 4 oz formula for his snack.  So far so good…we will gradually add more milk every couple days until we are rid of formula for good, YEAH!

Lastly, Will is down to only 1 bottle a day now, his special na-night bottle.  He now takes his snack milk from his sippy cup every day. 

What a growing boy, what am I going to do now?

(sorry about the lack of pics lately, I will get more up soon, I promise!)

Happenings

Thankfully the 3 a.m. thing was just a one time deal, I was in a slight panic after that happened last week.  William has really been making the rounds on the furniture, even getting daring enough the past few weeks to let go with one hand, turn around to lean on the couch and transfer himself, if he’s close enough, in between his toys.  He can get down the hallway still doing the worm, but much faster now.  He’s beginning to get 2 more teeth on the bottom, soon he will have a whole mouthful.  We added teeth brushing to his nightly routine for good now, although the past few days he’s resisting so I may try to just give him the brush and see what he does with it on his own.  For some reason I have an inkling it won’t be used for brushing his teeth!

I have been uber busy at work these days (literally 10-12 hrs/day) so I am lucky if I get to see him for more than an hour before he goes to bed.  It should only be temporary for work until we get through a major undertaking in early February.  Those longer days are normal for some of you, but it’s already draining me as I am closing my eyes writing this.  I am one who likes my 8 hours of sleep and only getting 5 or so has really taken its toll…

I am hang’n in there, it is really not that bad just very tiring plus I miss seeing my baby longer at night 

The coming weeks the postings may be hard to come by, but I will certainly try to make updates when I can!

Not 3 a.m. AGAIN

Maybe its teething or maybe its simply the novelty of “I can stand up now so I can do it in the middle of the night”…whatever it is, it is making Mommy and Daddy very tired.  Sure, when you have a new baby you’re used to getting up around the clock every hour or two, but when I’ve been sleeping relatively uninterrupted now for about 8 months, waking up to him screaming at 3 a.m. is tough!  Daddy handled it last night, like a trooper since I have to work.  We’re thinking if this is a short novelty type of thing, we can live with it, but if it continues we may take the nook away for good. 

Maybe that’s too mean?  Maybe, but we’re beginning to think he’s just playing with us…”if I wake up, and throw my nook out of my crib, then scream, my mommy or daddy will just come and pick it up for me.”  He’s doing it during the day too, this is the first one at 3 a.m., its been earlier in the night before, but we’re beginning to think the nook is causing more problems than what its worth.  He loves it, it was his inital motivation for crawling, but I think he would be just fine without it.  I think it helps him go to sleep faster, but we’re eventually going to need to take it away anyway, maybe now is better than later?  We’ll see…

(and, NOPE, it doesn’t help to put 3-4 nooks in his crib, he throws them ALL out, then screams because he can see them on the floor and can’t reach them, what a stinker!)

Anyone want to babysit? 

First word & teeth brushing

Well, other than “Mum” and “Dadda” of course (which he hasn’t said in a little while), William is now uttering what we believe sounds like Kitty.  He’s not exactly getting his “t” sound out, but its close to saying “key” and “he” together like “keyhe”. 

He is also learning from his book “Who loves baby?”, where I placed photos of his Grandpa’s, Grandma’s and Aunties & Uncles…too big of a family to add the first cousins too.  Will and I “read” his book regularly and he can now point out Grandma and Grandpa’s and Dadda in the pictures, we’re still working on all the aunties and uncles, but he’s getting there!

One other first last night, after bath time I brushed his 4 teeth for the first time.  I was pleasantly surprised he didn’t mind at all, I think he actually kinda liked it.  He really liked and opened his mouth for me to do his bottom 2 a couple times, but the top 2 he was a little weird about, but still didn’t fuss.  So, we have now added brushing his teeth to his nightly routine.

Novelty

Andrew and I are hoping the novelty of this standing in the crib wears off soon…William tends to wake up an hour or two before he actually needs/wants to get up, but in the past has just found his nook and quietly went back to sleep on his own.  NOW, this morning before I left for work around 6 a.m. Mr. Monkey Man himself was kinda crying…so I went in to check on him only to find him standing in his crib looking right at me.  Don’t get me wrong, its freak’n adorable!  But, not at 6 a.m. in the morning.  So, I picked him up for just a minute, talked to him quietly and put him back down.  He wasn’t happy about it, but he only cries for a couple seconds and then he stopped and hopefully fell back asleep so daddy could get some more rest too!  I am hoping this is one of those short-lived new things he learns, then onto the next…stay tuned!