ONE YEAR

I can't believe we have a one year old and are quickly approaching toddler days. This is the last super long, detailed post I plan on doing about Gray. He is learning so much every day and to continue documenting every month just isn't realistic. From this point on I will probably write a summary on any major milestones or happenings every other month or so. I know I'll be so glad to look back on all of these monthly posts one day though. He goes back for another well check-up at 15 months so I'll definitely post stats then. Here's what our boy is up to at 12 months...

Growth Stats-Gray had his 12 month well check up on Wednesday. He weighs 20 pounds, 13 ounces (43rd % tile) and is 31 and 1/4 inches long (92nd % tile!!!), which is almost 10 inches grown since he was born. His head measurement is 47 centimeters, which is the 74th % tile-all those smart brain cells take up a lot of space ;) He is wearing size 12 month shorts but mostly 18 month pajamas, onesies and shirts and still wearing size four diapers.

We love Dr. Bill!

Milestones-Several months ago I wrote that I would be shocked if Gray wasn't walking before he turned one. Welp, he is yet to be an official walker so my prediction was wrong. He has been pulling up, cruising, standing and even taking steps here and there for months now but he is in no hurry to become a walker. Although we aren't discouraging it by any means, we aren't putting our arms out 500 times a day begging him to walk to us either. We know he will walk and life will be even more fast pace when it happens so we are just going to let him decide when he's ready.

Gray hit another cute little milestone this month...pointing! This surprised us because we realized we never really modeled pointing, he just started doing it. It's so precious to see that sweet little finger pointing and him associating objects he points at to their name.

Playtime/Interests-The thrill of pulling all of the books down off the book shelf is finally starting to cease (thank you Lord for the small things). He still loves books but is getting better at just picking one or two out to look at or bring us to read. He doesn't seem very attached to any one particular toy right now, he is so busy that he moves from one thing to the next quite often. He is learning how to push the buttons to make certain toys sing or perform their function. His fine motor skills are coming along and he can put some of the shapes in his shape sorter. He loves putting objects inside of things, especially this toy piggy bank that he has. He also sometimes loads toys into the back of his dump truck, which is super cute. He is still really into sharing and spends a good part of the day sharing his food and his toys. We will continue soaking this up before he enters the "everything is MINE" stage. He LOVES dogs right now and it just makes his day to see a dog on a walk or visit friends and family that have dogs. He seems to be getting more attached to his paci, which I think happened two weeks ago when he was sick and I let him have it a lot more. He still never sleeps with it and we have tried to only let him have it in the car or as a last resort if he is super fussy.

Language Development-New words: paci (sound like paci), balloon (sometimes sounds like "boon", sometimes like "baa" but consistently makes one of those sounds when pointing to a balloon), thank you (this has only happened a few times but actually sounded very much like thank you!), basket ball (sounds like bassa), Sophie (sometimes sounds like "baby", sometimes sounds more like "Sophie"), flower (sounds like "bower"), doggie (sounds like "doggie" but sometimes with a 'b' instead). Dr. Bill was impressed with his speech for his age. We talk to him nonstop and I think his love for books certainly helps too.

Eating habits-New foods: blueberry waffles (we haven't introduced syrup yet because he loves them plain), broccoli, chicken, turkey (deli meat style-not a huge fan yet), French fries (shared with Daddy), grapes, rice, shrimp and cake! (not a fan). He loved banana baby food but hated real bananas until this week and he has decided he loves them now.

Gray is still getting four bottles a day but we will be transitioning to whole milk very soon. I don't think weaning him from his bottle will be too hard because he loves his sippy cup but I don't know what he will think of milk. We've saved some frozen breast milk in case we need to mix it in until he gets used to it. Gray's doctor said we need to step up his meat consumption but he says he would rather live off of Puffs, black olives, cheese and goldfish so it's going to take some work.

Sleeping habits-Bedtime has gotten closer to 8:00 and sometimes even 8:30. He is exhausted by 7:00/7:30 but instead of falling right to sleep like he always has at night, he has been playing in his crib until it gets darker out. Some mornings he is still up by 7:00 and some he sleeps until 8:00. Last week we had several dark, rainy mornings and he slept until close to 9:00! We have not wanted to get a curtain for his room for several reasons but I think we might give it a try because he does so much better with a consistent 12 hours of sleep at night. Last week he took two naps every single day, this week he has been going down for a second nap because he is super tired, but then when he gets in his crib he just talks and plays and by the time he is close to falling asleep it's 5:00 and interferes with bedtime. He is so happy in his crib though so we feel like leaving him in there to "rest" for a little while even if he doesn't always fall asleep is ok. I am going to try to put him down a little later each day so we can transition to a consistent one nap a day. He is sleeping like a champ away from home in his pack n play, which makes traveling not a dreaded thing anymore.
If baby boy gets much longer, we'll be switching to a big boy bed sooner than we thought.

Temperament/Personality-We have one strong willed little boy! But we also have a very sweet and silly boy too. He loves people and puts on quite the show when he has an audience. He even has this fake laugh that he does to get people's attention. It's hilarious! Dr. Satterwhite was explaining to us that most parents freak out when their one year old starts having tantrums but that terrible two's actually start then because after a child turns one, they are in their second year of life, which is when they are supposed to start. We have definitely been seeing some meltdowns lately but if he is ignored he gets over them pretty quick. Dr. Bill also said we only have a few more months to enjoy the redirection and distraction methods to tantrums so we'll enjoy that while we can :)

Favorite things about Gray at 12 months-I'd say our favorite things about Gray are still his sweet kisses and hugs. He is at such a fun age right now and just playing with him is the best. I have to admit I love his ticked off face right now. He puckers his lips up and scrunches his little nose and it takes all I have not to laugh.
This picture is pretty blurry but you get the point...

Here's our big one year old. These pictures keep getting harder and harder to get :)

Birthday party post coming soon!

Gray's first trip to the zoo!

I turned 32 years old last Saturday. I am finally starting to not get mad anymore when people ask me what high school I go to. Anywho, Paul had been asking me for two weeks what I wanted to do for my birthday weekend. I'd told him, actually begged him, to please let us just spend the weekend getting the last of Gray's birthday party planned out, stuff bought, etc. I should have known Paul couldn't settle for that. Friday afternoon while I was out running some errands, he and Gray snuck off to buy a delicious meal for him to cook that night. We ate outside after Gray had gone to bed. Saturday morning Gray was up extra early so before we had even gotten out of bed I mentioned to Paul that I wanted us to go on and head to the Y for an early class. He told me to rest a little while longer and he'd go get Gray fed and dressed. Shortly after, in walk my two boys with a gift bag. I'd also told Paul NOT to spend any money on me. I opened up the sweetest, homemade card and some little wooden African animals that were literally from Africa (a pastor we know and love in Kenya ships my mom stuff to sell here) and it said "Zoo Animals" on the package.

I hope I smiled through the "I know I told him not to spend any money on me but this is really weird"look on my face. Paul kept asking me what I thought about them and I just smiled, kind of shocked because he is like the best, most sneaky gift giver ever (even when he doesn't spend any money). Apparently I was doing a horrible job of picking up on what was really going on so he told me to see what else was in the bag. Then I opened passes to the zoo and he told me we were going to spend the day there! I've mentioned several times over the past few months that I couldn't wait to take Gray to the zoo for the first time. Paul mentioned it to his parents and they bought us a year long family pass to the zoo and aquarium (so he really didn't cheat and spend money). I was SO excited! I took a quick shower, we packed up the car and were off. Gray was up so early that he was already so tired when we left and I kind of worried about how things would go. He has to be really sleep deprived to nap in the car so we weren't surprised that he stayed awake the whole way there. By the time we got there he was beyond tired and as my mom would say "ill as a hornet". Thankfully as soon as he got in the stroller and started taking in all of the sights the zoo had to offer, including all of the people watching, he was a happy camper and sleep was a thing of the past.

We started in Africa, of course.

 Gray loved the animals that were pretty close to us like the elephants, zebras and giraffes.

Have you ever just studied a giraffe, even for a minute? They are so amazing to me.

 We even got to feed the giraffes! I'm not sure who was more excited about that part, me or Gray!

The lions weren't active enough for him to really notice but we enjoyed watching Mama try to wake up Daddy Lion and we got to hear a great big roar.

 Mama won.

 But only for a second...

Gray fought napping in his stroller for the longest time. He finally fell asleep the second we walked up to get on the tram to ride to North America. Sweet boy wasn't even mad at us for waking him up and the tram ride ended up being his most favorite part of the whole day.

Just a few minutes after arriving in North America, Gray was fast asleep and slept for an hour and a half, which is a small miracle considering he was away from his bed.

He slept through lunch, crocodiles, turtles, black bears, grizzly bears, polar bears and bison, which couldn't have been more perfect because he wouldn't have really noticed them anyway.

He woke up in time for the baby chimps, though he didn't seem to notice them too much through the glass. The pictures are horrible since the glass made such bad reflections, but there were several tiny baby chimps and they were so precious!

He won't fit in the Baby Bjorn much longer but we were so glad we had it with us because there was a lot he couldn't see from his stroller and he is too heavy to carry for long these days.

I am so in love with these two boys and oh so thankful God gave them to me!

 

Gray is seriously obsessed with sharing right now. He held out his snacks to every single person that walked by. Bless his sweet little heart, no stranger took him up on his offer for a wet, slobbery Puff. But Daddy pulled through, as he always does.

Africa was definitely the better part of the zoo and I am so glad it's where we started and spent most of our time. We headed home about 2:30 because Paul had already planned for my mom to come over at 4:00 to babysit so we could still get some things done for Gray's party. And as if the day hadn't been enough of a surprise, he had also made reservations to my favorite restaurant, Arigato! Yay for another delicious meal and a Mama/Daddy date night!

That Sunday evening my Gram made one of my favorite Greek dishes and we enjoyed some time with family. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday.

Now today is our baby boy's first birthday! We had a wonderful time celebrating on Saturday and I hope to get a post up in the next week or so about his party. He goes to the doctor on Wednesday for his 12 month well check-up so I'm aiming for a post all about Gray at one year sometime this week.

Memorial Day weekend

We took Daddy to school Friday morning so we could pick him up that afternoon and hit the road for Nana and Grandpa's. Everyone else had the same idea and what should have been a four hour car ride turned into almost six. Gray only dosed for about a half hour total and didn't get to sleep until 10:00 that night, which is about three hours past his bedtime. I worried that he'd still be up at 7:00 the next morning and would be an ill pill all day. But he surprised us all and slept until 10:30!!! The next two nights he slept from 7:30-9:00! I am so thankful that he is officially a good sleeper away from home. For now anyway.

We spent all day Saturday on the beach. We considered this Gray's first real time at the beach because he was only about 12 weeks old last year when we went. Sweet boy loved it as you can see from the pictures.

Not a fan of the sunglasses, in case you can't tell by his face.

Daddy taught Gray how to give high-fives.

He even took a nap in his pack n play. There is something about that salty, beach air.
A day in the sun and sand didn't wear Gray out too much because he was ready to play when we got back home from the beach. Nana and Grandpa got Gray a little motorized car for his birthday. He was more interested in the little compartment in the front than he was the car itself but I think when he figures out how to drive it himself, he'll love it.
What's a trip to Sneads Ferry without having a big seafood feast? Saturday night we enjoyed fresh from the water crabs, shrimp and scallops.
Sunday started off cool and cloudy so we played around the house until late afternoon.
Grandpa even let Gray drive his convertible.
Gray loves Jack and Dixie, Nana and Grandpa's boxers. They are so sweet to him unlike his sister, Sophie.
Late that afternoon when it finally warmed up some we hit the beach for a few hours.

Sharing sea shells.

That day's nap took place in Grandpa's arms on a long walk on the beach. How sweet are these two guys?!
It seemed like we had just gotten there when it was time to head home on Monday.

Gray also got to meet his great-Grandpa Smith (my mom's dad who lives in Washington state) for the first time. We spent some time with him on Friday before we left and here they are hanging out again before he had to head back on Tuesday.
Now that I'm finally posting about two weekends ago, I need to get started on this past weekend which happened to be Gray's first trip to the zoo (and I turned 29 again)! I know you'll be on the edge of your seat ;)

And can you believe our baby boy is turning ONE a week from TODAY?!

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