Words

I know that folks say --- soon he will talk so much, he just will not shut up...

But is it is so precious to watch them learn new words. The ones that really get my attention are the ones that he picks up that we aren't even pushing. For example, I set my son down on his changing table and he looks over sees a ball and says BAl.... just a slight L so it was BA. We hardly ever play with that ball. Then early this week, I realized on the changing table (I just realized my child is a genius on the changing table, I bet this means he will get all his great ideas in life on the pot!) that he was say diaper.... he version is DAper. I definitely haven't been working on that one. Lesson learned, listen a bit harder to what sounds like ramble. It just reminds you that they are taking in a lot more than you realize.

Crumb Land

As my son approaches the 1 year old mark, I am finally realizing that the floor will truly never be clean again. At least it isn't carpet. After dinner there are bits of food everywhere. Then some how he finds bits to eat later, even though I cleaned up. Or really my husband who can't stand messy! I wish I hadn't agreed to sell that little annoying robot vacuum.

He has his favorite foods - Bananas - he can eat 2 whole bananas no problem, YoBaby Yogurt, and Cheese. When he sees a banana in the store he turns in to a monkey. I thought I was in the clear the other day after getting him past the pyramid of bananas in Trader Joe's. Only to have a customer in the dry food aisle come up with her arms full of food, including bananas. At that point it was grab a banana or leave. He also knows the yogurt container in the store and gets very excited! Of course, after his banana and yogurt he does not understand the concept of all gone. Thankfully, he doesn't quite understand what a block of cheese is until it is in mini cubes on his tray.

Seriously, his enthusiasm for his favorites in still refreshing at this point.

What is up with babies and drawers?

I put stuff in in the drawer and my daughter takes it out. She loves to unload my pajama drawer all over my bedroom floor. Somehow though the fun stops and taking stuff out of drawers. I've never seen her have a blast folding stuff neatly and putting it back in the drawer. I wonder why that is? Any child development experts out there have a clue?

It is unavoidable – your baby will grow up

You may think you are prepared for this fact since everyone grows older but it comes as quite a shock when your own child does it. As that first birthday approaches you may throw yourself into other things to keep from thinking about your baby turning one so quickly. You might, for example, spend hours gluing black dots onto a plastic tablecloth for her ladybug themed party.

Your unexplained emotions over this event (that you knew all along was coming) might cause you to ask yourself if you are crazy. The truth is we start going crazy the minute that child is born but we don’t realize at first how every missed nap, every minor scar, and every diaper that refuses to contain a wild poop has slowly chipped away at our sanity. You might have told yourself “I will not be crazy like my mother”. I recently revised that to “I will not be AS crazy as my mother”. By the time my children go off to college I will probably wonder how my mother managed to stay so sane.

On the other hand the first year is a wonderful magical ride even if it is too fast for my sensitive stomach. The only solution I can see to this little first birthday existential crises is to have a leap year baby and push off that first birthday as long as possible.

If you think they can't, they can...

I often assume that Zachary can't reach certain things or isn't strong enough to pull something or sometimes I just assume he "wont be interested" in something... well, lately I've been needing to think again! He was recently playing in the fridge (has done this many times before) and noticed my egg container (which I didn't think he could reach, pull, or would be interested in doing so).. well you guessed it, 18 eggs splat all over the floor/fridge/baby. Not one egg remained uncracked. I should have taken a picture!