16 Month Update

Well my Zane is almost 16 months now! 

He has 12 teeth and is working on 4 more it seems. I feel like he's always teething. But I'm glad they're coming in on the earlier end of things and soon he'll be done! Thankfully they don't bother him much. :) 

He's all over the place, all over the furniture, climbing on anything he can climb on, and he's so proud of himself when he's up on something (think ice chest). He is pretty good bout getting down from things safely, but I still have to watch him, of course. 

The boy loves music. Loves to dance. And he is really freakin' cute when he dances!! 

He is a good eater but I suck at coming up with new things for him to eat. Poor kid! But he loves olives and pineapple lately. Oh and apples, and grapes! The boy eats a lot of fruit! He loves rice and macaroni but that's nothing new. When we go out to eat we usually get him grilled cheese, since that's pretty safe. Hot dogs are safe too. He's his mama's son so he loves cookies too. But I'm a little stingy and don't give him lots of that. Bites of mine, but none of his own. He doesn't need it, he's still a little guy. Well, I don't need it either! Ha!

Sleep. The boy can't make up his mind! Last week he was up around 7, nap around noon for about an hour and a half and bed around 8:30 and he'd wake up by midnight and back to sleep till like 5 then he'd come to bed with me and went right back to sleep no problem (no food needed!). This week has been different! Yesterday he was up at 5:30 (ugh!!), napped from about 12-3:30 (woah!!) and bed around 10. Woke up just before 5 and acted like he was awake for the day. That's just too early for me! I fought it but ended up coming out to the living room, put on cartoons with every intention of napping while he was awake. Clint was getting ready for work and gave him a Dorito. He took the Dorito, came to me for a snuggle and fell asleep holding that Dorito. He is so funny, the way he likes to sleep holding things. I had already given him a few options that usually work (chap stick, baby monitor) but I guess he was holding out for that Dorito. He really cracks me up!!

What else? Well he loves to go to the park and he is way too brave! He'll climb right up onto the big kid play stuff. Of course I have to go with him- there are way too many places for him to fall off of. Then we go down the slide and its a few minutes before he wants to do it again. Makes it hard to do the mommy socializing, but its fun to watch him have fun!

Speaking of mommy socializing! Lately Bunco has been kid free, and we've added in some drinking. Sometimes heavy drinking. ;) So its fun! I'm a wine drinker now. Well, trying to be. I'm finding some that I like. I'm 30. I should be drinking wine instead of fruity little cocktails. And, you know, calories and sugar! 

Clint and I are still doing great, but nothing exciting going on. Just life. :)

I guess that's it. Till next time!

Finally an update, my boy is ONE!

Well it's totes been forevsies since I've updated. My bad!

Zane is 13 months old now. Can you believe it?

This has, without a doubt, been the best 13 months of my life.

Ever. For sure.

Photo Credit to Jennifer Rice Photography.

Look at those eyebrows! He gets them from his dad.

He makes the best expressions. He's not big on smiling on demand (ie for pictures), but he's always giving us those funny looks and it makes up for it. (and of course we catch some smiles, too).

He's a thinker. He's curious. He's funny. He's sweet. He's tough.

Me? I'm just lucky. 

I mean look at my amazing family.. 

   

Anyway. We're doing really good. I'm gonna throw out some facts, mostly for future reference for myself. He had 8 teeth before his birthday, the last two came in around 10 months. He did a lot of army crawling before he did any real crawling, which finally happened around 8-9 months. He started pulling himself up shortly after. He took his very first step on May 30, but they were few and far between until a couple weeks after his birthday. He still crawls most of the time, but does a whole lot of walking too. He still can't stand without assistance but once he's up he's off! 

At his one year checkup, he weighed 21lbs and 12oz and was 29 3/4 inches long!

He loves to dance. And he does it in the most adorable way. I can't get enough of his moves!

His favorite show is Squeak on the Baby First channel. He just loves Tog, Toot and Tizzy Mouse and when the theme song comes on it can almost always calm him down if he's upset. I have a few episodes recorded just for that. ;) 

He loves Zoey, he thinks she's hilarious and wants to eat her fur. We don't allow this, but he tries anyway. She is very tolerant of him, which we're thankful for.  

He loves bananas and blueberries, beans, elbow mac with marinara, and veggie straws.

He loves to be outside.

He loves bath time.

He loves older children who love to play with him.

He loves cars and any toy he can push around the floor, walking or crawling. But mostly he loves things that aren't toys. Remote controls, sunglasses, and he loved my phone the few times he's gotten his hands on it.  

I nursed far longer than I ever intended to. Less than a week after his birthday, I cut it down to only night nursing. About 2 weeks ago I stopped night nursing.

When I quit day nursing, it was because I realized I could. He was able to nap without nursing, so one day after his morning nap I just decided I wasn't gonna nurse till bedtime. It went well.

When I quit altogether, it was similar. Bed time was approaching and I just decided I wouldn't nurse. It really wasn't as difficult as I expected. I guess we were both pretty ready for it. Don't get me wrong, there are still times it would be so much easier if I could just stick a boob in his mouth. That almost always solved his problems. But without nursing, I've noticed that we've got a better routine going, and he doesn't wake up as much through the night. He's still perfectly healthy, and I'm able to get more sleep and most of all- my body is mine again, finally, after almost 2 years! I no longer have to think about how what I put in my body will affect Zane. I can drink if I want to drink! I can be away from him for an entire day if I want to be. Hasn't happened yet, but I'm thinking that's not far away. 

I mentioned a routine.

Now its not exact, but I can't expect too much, can I?

It goes something like this... 

We wake up between 6 and 7. 

Breakfast followed by playtime or whatever.

Good snack around 10.

He takes a nap around 10:30 till about noon.

Lunch. More playtime and whatnot.

Another nap around 4 till around 5:30.

More playtime and such.

His dinner is between 6:30 and 7:30.

Then he gets a bath.

And he falls asleep between 8:30 and 9:30.

This is where it varies, because he used to still wake up around midnight, but lately he's be sleeping all the way till 4. At that time, I give him applesauce and we watch cartoons in the recliner and we both go back to sleep. Sometimes I put him in bed and get back in my own bed, sometimes I don't. When I was nursing, I would bring him to our bed early in the morning like that, and sometimes I miss sleeping with him. So I don't mind a couple hours snoozing on the recliner with him.

Sometimes I have to fight to get him to nap (like this morning.. omg!), sometimes he goes down easily and quietly by himself.

Obviously there are days our routine is shot. Those days are typically called grocery shoping days.

Thankfully Zane is The Incredible Sleeping Baby (thats his official hashtag). He sleeps pretty much the entire way to town, and usually takes a little nap sometime while we're out. Either between stores or in Wal Mart. I've got some great pictures of my shopping cart sleeper. Then amazingly, he sleeps the whole way home. He's incredible! And he may go to bed a little later that night, but not much. I'm so lucky!

We also do things here in Bagdad. We have a Mommy Group every other Tuesday morning where we have a babysitter for all the kids and its usually 7 or 8 of us mamas in the other room doing a craft or playing a game and just talking. Its a nice little break from the kids, and Zane loves playing with all the other kids, and I've made some friends out of the deal! 

Every Thursday is story time at the library. He gets pretty restless during story time, not gonna lie, but after about 15 minutes of stories, we get some playtime with the other kids. Of course he always wants to roam around the library outside of the kids section, so he keeps me on my toes!

We also have the occasional park play date, but its been too hot to do that often. The pool closes soon, but we've made a handful of trips to the pool this summer and he's enjoyed it more and more each time. The first time he was very unsure about it. The last time he had a blast! We put him in a little floatie "boat" so we can push him around and he can splash.

 Most of our days are spent primarily at home. I'm so lucky that I'm able to be a stay at home mama and just focus on raising my little boy. I can't imagine not knowing when he eats, poops, and sleeps. These are the things my life revolves around. He spends some time playing by himself, and some time demanding my attention. I'm happy either way.

Most of the time, lol. Of course there are times I wish I could just crawl back in bed.

Clint amazes me on a pretty regular basis. He is a fantastic Daddy.

Like, really.

He loves his boy so much. He would do anything for him, and for me.

He doesn't change a lot of diapers or give him a lot of meals. But he'll come home after working all day and cook dinner (not every day, of course, I'm a better wife than that). He lets me get away with a messy house. He has this almost annoying way of calming Zane down when I can't and getting him to sleep. I don't know how he does it. He's fun and silly and makes Zane (and I) laugh all the time. They don't get a ton of time just the two of them, but I am 100% confident in him when those times do come. A lot of moms can't say that. I know he'll meet all his needs, even if he may do things differently than I would.

He's just the best husband and dad. I couldn't have asked for anything better. Again I say, I'm so lucky.

I think I've covered just about everything, except myself.

I do get some "me" time, believe it or not.

I go to the gym just about every week day, and some Saturdays. When I'm at the gym Zane is either with Clint or in day care. I'm not losing weight at this point, but I'm about to be making some changes and hopefully I'll start dropping some weight. But this isn't a weight post, so moving on...

I play Bunco! Its so much fun! I play with the same girls from the moms group and the library, and sometimes a few others. I love that adult time where we can just have fun and be silly and throw things at each other! ;) Of course there's always at least a few children running around.

When Zane naps I used to do housework, but now I try to do that while he's awake so I can enjoy my "me" time. I either scrapbook or get caught up on my DVR (while folding laundry, because that's almost impossible with Zane "helping"). Right now he's in bed and I'm using my "me" time to finally update my blog. :) 

And I think that about covers it. I mean I've been typing for a good two hours, surely I didn't leave anything out.

Hopefully it won't be so long before I update again. 

All phots by Jennifer Rice Photography

Shushybye and Goodnight!

(I may have been watching too much Baby First ;) )