anyone other than us [2012]

Well, I really did have good intentions on posting this in time, but here I am, a week late...but then again, at this point I should consider myself lucky that I'm recording anything at all! Sheesh. Anyway, here we go, Victor's 3/4-to-1-year-old update:

*Stats: Weight and Height will be determined next week at his doctor's appointment for his extra needles. Wearing 6 month PJs, and 6 month and 6-12 month pretty much everything else (I finally gave in and put away his last few pairs of 3 month pants and 3-6 month shirts, I was in denial I think!) Still wearing all his small cloth diapers, although they are pretty 'low riders' in some cases. I adjusted his Fuzzibuns one-size diapers and they now do a much better job than they were doing before. We switched to Size 3 disposables, even though he could still fit into size 2s easily. Eyes are still super dark, not sure when/if they will ever turn!

*The way I want to describe this past month is BETTER. It has gotten better since last month, which I felt was quite hard on both me and Victor. All areas seemed to improve at least a little, and there was some really good stuff that happened too, so all in all I felt like we jumped the hurdle and can now move on to the next stage of baby and mama-hood.

We saw this expression a lot! (see above)

*Sleeping has become more regular, with only one waking/feeding at night, and there were plenty of nights where he slept 6-8 hours in a row or more, so overall much better. The most annoying thing about the nights now are the diaper changes, for some reason we aren't able to get through the nights a lot of times without having soaked pajamas and being woken up by that. I have pretty much abandoned cloth during the nights and am hoping that the larger size 3 disposables will work better. He is starting to go to bed earlier and earlier, usually between 7:00-8:00pm, and he wakes up almost every day at around 7:00-7:30am. He usually always naps in the morning, but only for about 45 mins, and then he will nap again sometimes around or after lunch, and maybe again later in the afternoon around supper time, but we're still not in a good routine for the afternoons, it really depends on the day (he's always so much happier when he naps in the afternoon, but he doesn't seem to realize it!)

*Eating is going ok, we're running into a few little issues but nothing major. Mostly it just has to do with him being kind of picky about certain foods. He's not into touching food if it's wet (meaning not cheerios, crackers, really dry foods). When he does he seems to get grossed out and just drops it. Which means I need to give him most of his veggies and fruit in baby food/spoon form, which is ok I guess. For awhile he really wasn't digging any kind of fruit but he has gotten over that a little bit. New foods this month included fish (didn't like), low-sodium Ritz crackers (loves them), yogurt (loves), apple cinnamon cereal, 3.25% cow's milk, and others I can't really remember. We mostly always get breakfast and supper in, and I try to get him to eat lunch most of the time but he's not always hungry around then, not sure why. Plus a few snacks throughout the day, of course.

Yogurt face

*I'm still breastfeeding, but this past month it has decreased and I think we're on our way to weaning. He eats once throughout the night (though sometimes not), once when he first wakes up in the morning, once around lunchtime and once around suppertime. He gets an 8-oz bottle of formula before bed so overall he only eats 3-4 times in a 24 hour period. He still seems interested in nursing so I will keep doing it as long as my supply is there, but I think that by his 1st birthday we'll pretty much be done.

Eating his not-so-healthy snack, Ritz crackers

*Bath time has become a lot more fun for Victor now that he is big enough to 'play' in the water. We fill the tub with a couple of inches of water and then lay him down in it on his belly and he commando crawls around, he loves it. He has toys that he likes to chew on and he likes to look around and splash. We give him a bath probably once every other night, at this point he doesn't need to bathe more than that.

*The biggest milestone this month has been the pulling up/standing. He has pretty much mastered it and can now pull himself up on pretty much anything, even things without ledges like the fridge door! He loves to be standing and prefers that over anything else these days. He's most content when standing up against the coffee table or his 'toy chest' and pulling things down/playing with items while standing. He can also get down without any sort of issue and even learned how to scoot himself off the couch feet first! Unfortunately he doesn't always remember to do that and has taken a tumble or two (same with the standing, it hasn't come without a few bumps and bruises). He's not the best at sitting but I feel like I can mostly trust him to sit now, at least for a little bit (he'll usually go down on his belly to crawl or play from sitting).

Very proud he learned to stand in his crib (and forcing us to lower his mattress)

Morning adventures

*Other things he enjoys doing include playing with doors (opening and shutting them), pulling items down off of anything and everything (or out of drawers/baskets), dropping things from his highchair, playing 'peek a boo', crawling all over the apartment, banging toys, playing in his exi-saucer, and generally getting into things he's not supposed to. He's definitely at that curious stage where he needs to see and touch (and eat) everything. Oh, the things he's put in his mouth! (example: cat food.)

He LOVES the printer and getting under my feet while on the computer!

*He still only has 2 teeth and shows no sign of getting others, which probably isn't helping with the eating thing, but oh well.

*Activities this past month included a trip to the Aquatic Centre (since he was enjoying his baths I was more confident in bringing him, and he had an amazing time, I can't wait to go back!), and Halloween, which turned out to be quite uneventful, but I got some cute photos out of it so that's enough for now. Next year will be better.

Little lion-Halloween 2010

*He's getting better at making sounds and will try to repeat what we say. Right now we're trying to get 'bye bye' down, but it mostly comes out like 'baba'. I didn't mention this in his other updates but he whistles all the time, it's really funny. He makes his mouth so small and then breathes out of it and it makes a little whistling noise, I don't know he does it, but he's been doing it for a couple of months now, it's cute. You can also tell he understands how to respond to certain things, like when I say "gros bec" (big kiss) and kiss him on the cheek he knows to turn his head towards me and lays a big open mouth 'kiss' on my face right after. He's getting better at pressing buttons and figuring things out, it's fun to see when he learns something new and I'm always surprised when he does (I don't know why, I expect babies to be dumber I guess?)

Playing with Papa

*Personality-wise Victor has gotten much better at being on his own, though that isn't to say that he still doesn't whine and cling to us; he does, it's just much less than before. In the mornings he's happy to play on his own and he can entertain himself a bit better (as the day progresses though it seems to get worse and worse-see sleeping bullet above). I don't think he's quite secure yet though because every time he sees me he cries and heads my way, even if he was having a perfectly good time on his own the moment before. He has his good moods and bad moods, but compared to last month the good moods seem to be much more abundant. He's always really happy to see Dan when he gets home from work, which is really heart-warming, and he recognizes other people and enjoys them now, like my parents and my friend Sara. He's still cuddly with me sometimes but also wants to get out one his own/wiggle away more from me now, which is a nice sign. I'm sure this clingy-ness phase will be over soon, and like I said, we're on our way out already.