Lachlan - 13 months

We are still having major computer issues around home, so there is unfortunately a lack of pictures with this post, but do have some 13 month photos to show.  I'm trying a new setting for his monthly picture of him just sitting in his chair...problem is that he does not want to sit still in the chair and get his picture taken.  Instead he only wanted to repeatedly bang his head with the paper towel holder:

Or was determined to ruin and peel off his sticker:

Or had mouthful of animal crackers as bribery to stay in the seat long enough to snap some pics:

No change in teeth or clothing sizing.  In fact, he weighs slightly less now than at his 12 month checkup, so he has definitely hit a plateau.  He has became a little less clingy, which has been really nice...now it just goes in phases or waves, but he will do periods of independent play.

He has been such a healthy baby and in the last month has had 2 minor ear infections.  He didn't seem bothered by them at all, so we were kinda shocked when the doctor told us.  He took amoxicillin each time-- the first time he came down with a fever and rash, which may have been a separate virus, but also could have been a non-allergic reaction to the antibiotic.

He enjoyed his 2nd xmas, but still too young to have any concept of what was going on or that he got a bunch of new cool stuff!

Fine/Gross Motor Skills

• Loves lifting flaps in books
• Enjoys looking at books himself and will work really hard sometimes to try to turn pages 1 at a time instead of skipping through chunks of them.  (This is just sometimes and some books that he will try for the 1 page only at a time...others he still clumps through himself)
• Waving Hi a little more consistently.  (Sometimes says Hi along with it.)
• Walks with walker toys...no concept of steering and just rams into the walls
• This has taken him a while to master, but while standing (holding on to something) he can slowly bend down to pick up the object and return to standing.  Before he would just plop to sit down to get the object.

Cognitive Skills

• Very good memory of all the flaps in his books and which ways they open
• We do some hand motions with some of his books and he will pick up on it instantly and remember the page to do the action.  For example, in a Sesame Street book it says something about Oscar's hammer going bam, bam, bam.  Dustin would always slap his thigh to imitate the bang and now Lachs does it every time.  For Wheels on the Bus, I hit the page when making the horn go beep beep beep and he'll do that.
• Before he started signing eat, he figured out to crawl over to his high chair and bang on it when ready for food
• Loves pointing at things and us naming them.  Sometimes he will switch pointing between 2 objects like 10 times in a row while we just keep telling him the names. 
• He is understanding how to be silly or what is silly.  If I pretend to use his pacifier or sippy cup he knows that is funny.

Verbal/Communication Skills

Since he was going to be home with us for almost 2 weeks over xmas, I wanted to really emphasize signing certain things and see if he could pick up on it.  We so struggle with understanding what he wants sometimes, so I was hoping this would help him communicate some with us.  I was shocked at how fast he picked this up (because his daycare teacher does not do this with them)!   His most frequent is "All Done."  The worst is when he uses it in instances like while in the carseat and I can't react to it!

Signs:

• All done
• More
• Eat
• Hi/Bye (waves)
• Reaches both arms up to be held
• Can sometimes point to the room or object he wants when he gets flustered and I tell him to show me what he wants.  Or I will point to do different things and ask him which one he wants to do...and he'll point at one.

Words he says and we think knows meaning:

• Hi
• Dada
• Uh Oh  (most frequently said word BY FAR)
• Duck and Quack, Quack

Words/Phrases he understands (I'm sure there is more, but am blanking out on this):

• Bring it to mommy/daddy or Come to mommy/daddy
• Go get daddy-- he will then just come full body at Dustin to wrestle with him
• His name (he has known this for a while)
• No (understands but only follows it 5% of the time)
• Where's Lachlan-- he knows that will start a game of peekaboo and will go hide or cover eyes

Eating
We are done with the formula and done with bottles!    He eats really all of the school food that is provided- the only thing they don't give him are oranges cause we think they may give him diaper rashes.  At home, I've been trying to make things that he can eat with us, but that just depends on how busy I am.  Unfortunately I try to feed him healthy most times, but he does get the occasional McDonald's and Pizza Hut :)  He signs "all done" when he is finished eating, but that means we have a 3 second window to react.  He will start picking up his food and dropping it on the floor if we leave him there too much longer!

Sleep
Sleeping 10.5-11 hours each night.  Naps have got better at daycare- they have started doing just one nap and he sleeps for about 1.5 hours, so that is much better.  Interestingly enough, he sleeps on the cot and has done so much better than in his crib.  They said he would just laugh at him and bang around and play when they try to put him in the crib...or sometimes scream/cry.  They put him on this cot that is about 2 inches off the floor and he just lays right down, does not move, does not try to get off of there.  His teacher says that within minutes he is out and has a pile of drool :))  Unfortunately because he only gets this 1 nap, he usually sleeps on the car ride home and we have to wake him up to eat dinner and he is pretty crabby, so then put him to sleep pretty early.  I get to see him for less than an hour on weeknights usually.  On the weekends, we still do the 2 naps, so he gets a good 3+ hour of naps in.

Favorite Things

• Books with flaps...loves, loves, loves 
• Using any of his toys with wheels that enable him to walk or pushing around on his hands/knees
• Crawling into a closet, pantry, bathroom, etc and closes the door to play peek-a-boo....definitely not scared at all if the room is pitch black and he will wait pretty long for us calling out to him before he'll open the door to show himself.
• Covering his eyes while in the high chair to play peek-a-boo...always waits until they are super messy to do this
• Peeing on the bath towel every single time we take him out of the tub...just started this up
• Stuffed animals that talk/sing/move
• My old rocking chair and Sesame Street table
• Anything he can ride-- Cozy Coupe and Pillow Racer (we have had to hide these cause he just loves them so much and only wants us to push him on these!)

Typical Day at 13 months:

• 6:45-7:15- Wake up and get dressed and in the car if weekday.  On weekend, will usually let him in the crib for 15-20 minutes and then get him out to play.  It was very easy to eliminate this bottle-- I'll sometimes  give him a sippy of milk or juice. 
• 8:30- Breakfast (Prune Juice or 5oz milk plus school breakfast.)
• 9:30- Nap if at home (usually 1.5 hours)
• 11:30- Lunch and 5 oz milk in sippy cup (Eats school lunch)
• 12:00- Nap if at school  (usually 1.5 hours)
• 1:30- Nap if at home (usually 1.5 hours)
• Afternoon Snack with 5 oz milk 
• 5:30-6 Sleeps on car ride home from daycare
• 6:00- Dinner and water in sippy
• 6:45- Bath every 2-3 nights (We have tried to move this up a tad earlier due to him sleeping so late)
• 7:00- Read him a few books in the rocking chair; Offer some water in a sippy

My latest faves!

So our computer has totally crashed.  We are in the process of hopefully being able to recover pics and videos off the hard drive...and if not, this will probably be my last post ever cause I will just die without them!  So most of my good posts I have in the works will have to wait until I can get the pictures to accompany them.

By the way, we did get a new laptop this last weekend (which is why I can resume with some boring posts in the meantime), but it has Windows 8 which I'm having a really hard time getting used to.  Anyone else having troubles switching?  It is not very intuitive.  Seriously think I'm going to have to watch probably some 6 year old on YouTube do a training video.

Anyways, here are some of my favorite things lately, so thought I'd pass along:

Shout Color Catchers:  Throw in any laundry combination and these things are amazing-- they suck up all the dye from your dark/colored clothes.  I wish I would have used these a long time ago cause I never really sort my clothes like I should.

 

Kleenex Cool Touch:  I have had a killer cold this week and these things are a lifesaver!  They are so much better than any of the tissues with lotion.  These things are NOT greasy like the lotion ones, but I can blow my nose 50 times/day and it doesn't get sore.  They are really soft and feel cool...just like the name!

 

Television Shows:  We have just finished getting caught up on the current seasons of Breaking Bad, Homeland, and Dexter....all outstanding!

 

Apps: SongPop is my favorite; Wheels on the Bus is my favorite for Lachlan

 

Wool Cover:  I HIGHLY recommend the Etsy shop My Eco Baby.  Look at all of her CUTE designs that she makes from old sweaters!  I did a custom order of a black/gray soaker with an owl applique.  Besides being cute, these things have been a lifesaver.  We were getting night diaper leaks nearly every night, so I bought one of these for him to wear over his diaper.  Wool can absorb like 40% of its weight and I soak it about once per week in a lanolin solution so it repels the moisture away from his skin.  It has worked like a champ!  I'm thinking of buying another one.  I don't have a picture right now of mine, but here is a cute one:

 

McDonald's Grilled Onion and Cheddar Burger:  This is a score cause it is on the dollar menu...holler!  It tastes pretty much just as you imagine-- the flavor of McDonald's, but the grilled onions had a great grilled flavor.  My only complaint was that it comes dry...I got a side of their Hot Mustard to dip it in.









First Birthday Party- Uno Theme!

Let me just say that sometimes Pinterest sucks-- you see these people who go ALL OUT for a first birthday, so makes us normal folks feel like real slackers!  Anyways, I did get my idea from Pinterest, but kept it pretty simple.  The theme was Uno...as in the card game....as in Uno means One in Spanish.

Here were the invites (I had these made from Etsy seller NvitationsByRachelle):

We just invited over family and sent the invites by email.  For decorations, I bought latex balloons in Uno colors (red, blue, green, yellow, and black).  We also just taped some uno cards to the patio door/window which was behind Lachlan's high chair.  I'd definitely recommend this theme cause it would be really easy to do a lot of decorations by just buying things in the color scheme which you could probably find at the dollar store.

I made sugar cookies that looked like little Uno Cards.  These turned out pretty good and were surprisingly easy.  I used pre-made sugar cookie dough.  I couldn't find my rolling pin, so I just put some flour on the counter and patted it as evenly flat as I could.  Next, I took a knife and just cut out something that looked like a rounded rectangle.  Baked according to the directions on the package.  I made some icing following this recipe, but used Lemon Extract in place of the Almond.  I began by painting a white oval in the center of all the cookies-- I used just regular watercolor paintbrushes- the cheap kind you would buy your kids.  By the time you get to the last one, the early ones have already dried.

 So then I divided up the icing into little bowls and colored it.  I then painted around the oval with the desired color and the number one on the oval.  Lastly, I had saved a small amount of the white icing and used a toothpick to paint on really small number ones in the corners.  It took a little bit of time to do the painting, but not too bad.

The cake I spent a little too much time on, but I always remembered the huge excitement of our birthday cakes growing up and what a big deal it was...so I just felt like I owed this to Lachlan and want him to be excited each year for a cool cake.  I had scoured the internet for Uno birthday cake photos and found some cool ones, but ultimately decided I would just do a rectangular cake and make it look like a large uno card with the number one on it.  And to take it a step further, I was doing a version of a rainbow layer cake, so that it consisted of 4 layers- one of each of the uno colors.  I used 2 box white cake mixes and just tried to divide up the batter evenly once mixed.  I used the gel food coloring cause read that it was much more vibrant.  I lined my pan with wax paper and sprayed it with nonstick spray before pouring the batter in.  I baked the cakes and let them cool.  Once cool, I laid wax paper on the counter and flipped them out of the pan and then turned them over again, so they were back to how they were in the pan.  I used a bread knife and tried to cut off any excess of the tops of the cake to make them flat...that was harder than it seems and I didn't do a very good job, but oh well.  Next, I made icing with this recipe-- and it took a TON in order to go between my layers and ice the outside of the cake!  I put my first cake layer on the platter and tried to spread a thin layer of the icing.  Repeated that until my cakes were gone.  I then iced the top and sides fairly generously so I didn't have any cake poking through.

It wasn't looking too glamorous at this point

 Now it was about an hour before the party and I still was trying to figure out how to decorate the cake to make it look like an uno card!  I had all these icing supplies out and was seeking advice from my sister.  Finally, I think I came up with the idea of-- what about if we used some paper to make a stencil and use some blue sugar to just shake/spread on in order to create the look of the uno card.  So my sister was awesome and jumped on the task doing the whole thing and I think it turned out great and only took maybe 10 minutes to do.

Lachlan was comfy napping while my sister and I were frantically finishing getting things ready for the party.  Dustin was unfortunately not feeling well, so he was resting up.

Another simple thing we did was hang all of Lachlan's monthly pictures so we could all see how much he has changed and grown!  Dustin says he peaked around 3-4 months with his cuteness...I disagree.

Lachlan was not in the best of moods, but I think was just a little overwhelming to have so many people in the house.  He usually wanted mom or dad in sight at all times.  He enjoyed the cake, but didn't go crazy loving it.

The layers looked great once we cut into it!

After the cake, we opened gifts.  Lachlan was interested in the first few presents, but then quickly was more entertained by looking out the window, examining the xmas tree, etc.  He has completely enjoyed playing with everything the last couple weeks though!!

We got him a mini chair from Land of Nod- he liked it more than I thought he would!