1 year!

My baby is a whole year old!  Well... I'm a little late on posting this, so he's actually 13 months as of yesterday! 

We are now entering into the world of seconds.  It was his 2nd first day of Spring, it will be his 2nd Easter, my 2nd Mother's Day!  All of the calendar firsts have officially been experienced and my baby isn't so much of a baby anymore. 

Here are a few shots from his birthday party:

Of course he enjoyed playing with his cake, but none made it to his mouth.

But don't worry, we made sure he got a few bites of birthday cake!

What is 1 year old Jack up to? 

His favorite things to do are to cruise around the room holding on to furniture and push his walking toys all over the place.  He has not taken any steps on his own yet, but he's so close!  He's now walking back and forth across the family room with his toys, but standing off to the side and only holding on one handed to push it.  Ahhhh! 

He loves anything with wheels and seems to prefer playing with these toys on something.  Usually either the coffee table or bay window, but sometimes he even tries to get his trucks up on the TV stand or the end table.  You can tell when he starts to get tired because he starts getting uncoordinated and if he can't get a toy up on to whatever he's aiming or it's like the end of the world and can prompt a quick meltdown until someone comes to help him achieve his goal! 

He also really likes to play with balls.  He's been rolling them back and forth with us for a while, but he can now pick it up and throw it and has even figured out that he needs to angle his body towards us and aim in order for it to reach his intended destination. 

He is starting to really repeat sounds that we make.  I say, "bye-bye, bye-bye" and occasionally he'll say "buh-buh" back.  Last night I was saying, "let's go see what DaDa is doing.  Let's go find DaDa" and he said, "Da Da Da".  You can tell that he's trying to repeat what you're saying to him!  And of course he still says, "MaMaMaMaMa", especially when he's upset. 

He likes to go through all the "fun things" he knows how to do, especially during meal time.  He claps when we say "yaaay!" and likes us to clap back.  He waves bye-bye when prompted and he still does it with his hand facing him, which is adorable!  He still loves to play peek-a-boo, and recently he has started doing "so big!".  He throws his hands up over his head when we say that.  And he'll give high-fives. 

He's definitely interested in reading books with us now and his long-time favorite is still Touch-and-Feel Baby Animals.

We read it so much that he seems to think that all books are touch-and-feel so he tries to feel the pages of regular books too.  He insists on reading it several times a day by bringing it to us and putting it in our laps.  He gets a huge grin when he realizes we're going to read it again. 

He's still not self-feeding and he's still usually waking up one time overnight.  He's been down to 2-3 bottles (the 3rd being overnight if he wakes) for several weeks now and he now takes half formula, half cow's milk in each bottle usually totaling 8-12oz of each in a day. 

He's been up and down with eating.  A few months back he started refusing purees in favor of real food.  Now he's back to wanting purees and in the last few days he's refusing pretty much anything that's not from a jar.  I that this has everything to do with the fact that he's teething awfully bad right now!  The last week or so have been very trying and he's obviously in pain.  He must be working on his 1 year molars as he's never struggled with teething before, but oh boy, this is a whole different ballgame!  I just hope they pop through soon so that he feels better and we can all relax!

Here are some random pics:

He's always a happy boy after naptime!  I always have a big grin waiting to greet me!

And his little airplane is still one of his favorite toys.