leo is one

WE MADE IT! It really doesn't seem possible that you are one. It feels like it was eons ago that I was in that hospital room holding a brand new baby Leo. Everything since then has been a blur of happiness and survival.

I say survival because juggling the needs of two little ones is certainly a lot of work, but you really did make it as easy on us as possible. You've been such a delightful baby that I'm having a hard time accepting that we are officially out of babyhood and into toddlerhood.

We had so much fun celebrating your birthday with a circus lion themed party. More to come on that later. For now, let's cover everything that's happened over the last month (or so...I've come back to this post several times over the past 2 weeks and have failed to finish every time. I blame the fact that I've been solo parenting a lot lately due to Dada's work travel).

The most exciting development is that you are now walking! We knew it would probably happen this month, and sure enough, on Super Bowl Sunday with Aunt Mae Mae, Uncle Boo and Abby in attendance, you took 2-3 little steps. We all failed to capture it on camera, but there were witnesses so it did happen! It took a few more days before you were replicating those few steps, and maybe a week or so after that before you were truly taking little walks. Even as recently as 7-10 days ago, I would say you were about 50/50 crawling to walking, but now that you can stand up without any assistance you walk everywhere.

I love this beginning walking stage so much. You literally toddled around with your arms in a goalpost pose to help with balance. You would just kind of take off and then lunge forward hoping someone or something would catch you. I loved being on the receiving end of that with those chubby cheeks and big smile coming toward me and falling into my lap all day long. You were so proud of yourself! Unfortunately, not everything is as good a landing spot as mama so you racked up a fair amount of bumps and bruises along the way. You are pretty steady now, and able to catch yourself with your hands or bum. You are still climbing stairs like a madman, and you are getting pretty good at going down stairs as well. We are obviously still spotting you, but I'm hoping you'll master them fairly quickly. You even tried to climb out of the bathtub the other day, and you almost succeeded.

Sleep remains the same. Thank goodness! You sleep through the night from about 7:45-7. There have even been minimal tears when I put you down recently. You usually still take a morning nap around 10/10:30 but sometimes we skip it if you slept in late or if we are out doing something. You won't really nap on the go anymore, but it's not a big deal for you to just skip the morning nap so that's been nice. Your afternoon nap is still about 1.5-2 hours, and I wake you up by 3:45.

I'm down to just 3 nursing sessions - morning, before nap, and bedtime. I think we'll just see how the next few months go, but I can already tell you are gradually nursing less and less. We have introduced cow's milk and you seem ambivalent - you don't love it, you don't hate it. You prefer water. You are still eating most of what is put in front of you, but it varies from day. One day you might not want chicken, but the next day, you'll have several helpings. If there is one food that you never seem to love, it might be raspberries or pears. You love using utensils, and insist on having your own spoon or fork (otherwise, you'll demand mine!).

You have 4 new molars now! You actually cut the first two on your birthday weekend, but luckily they didn't seem to cause much angst. They kind of surprised me because I forgot the first set of molars come in before the canines. I was on the lookout because you were drooling and chewing like crazy so I felt your gums one day and was surprise to feel a big, sharp molar. Only 8 more teeth to go and then you are all done.

What did cause some angst around your birthday was the absence of Mama. Even though the spotlight was on your birthday, I got to celebrate too. We went away for a night while Shi Shi and Papa manned the circus at home. You weren't thrilled about it (boy were you clingy when I got back!), but you weren't a complete disaster either. Shi Shi had to offer some extra snuggles around 11:00 p.m. but you otherwise did OK. Unfortunately, most other caretakers don't have such luck. We drop you off at church nursery every Sunday and MOPs nursery twice month, but you rarely make it the entire time without Mama getting called to come get you. We'll just have to keep trying until you learn that Mama always comes back.

You have started to really play with toys intentionally and figure out the "proper" way to get them to work - putting your cars right way up and racing cars on the track, stacking rings, etc. You love knocking down whatever Charlie is building with his magnatiles. You like taking things in and out of containers, and in general, just figuring out how to get into things, work things, etc. We are starting to work on using your shape sorter and doing beginner puzzles.

You also still LOVE balls. We got you a little pop-up tent, which we filled with 300 balls to make a ball pit. I'm sure I'll regret this (I already do to be honest), but it makes you so happy. You love to play catch, and just today I caught you and Charlie throwing the ball back and forth, which naturally melted my heart. You have a pretty good arm for a one-year-old. We also notice that you favor your left hand so we'll see if that sticks.

Your other favorite toy is the toilet. You love unrolling toilet paper, you love putting things in the toilet, you love splashing in the toilet. You love the toilet so much that I almost wish Charlie wasn't potty trained so we could go back to keeping all the bathroom doors locked. :)

Here are some things you don't like: socks and shoes. You ALWAYS try to take your socks off, but you usually stop after getting one sock off so you are constantly walking around with one sock on. It drives me crazy always having to look for the other sock. Since you are walking now and we have had a few nicer days to play outside, I had to put you in real shoes, which you didn't love.

You also don't like diaper changes. You just have better things to do with your time. I try to get your brother to entertain you otherwise I have to hold your still with one hand while trying to change your diaper with the other.

At the top of the list is your hatred for not getting your way. You are becoming more and more vocal about what you do or don't want to do. For example, if I move you away from the toilet or don't let you touch the stove knobs, you cry and pout. You also LOVE pushing the buttons on the ovens and then, of course, hate when I don't let you.

You are saying more words, but they tend to come completely out of the blue and then we don't hear them again. You seem to decide every now and then to just go for it. So far, we've heard "uh oh, hello, wawa, and jungle." Random, I know, but they have all been caught on camera or heard by more than one person so I promise we aren't making it up. Dada and mama remain the only two in regular rotation. Dada is still your favorite, but just these last couple of days, I have heard a ton of mamas.

You continue to learn new tricks all the time. When you decide you want to do something, you are a quick study. Papa taught you how to do (what he calls) head-knockers, where you just kind of lean into someone for a little head bump. Boys....lol. You love doing it at the table while eating. You still give great high fives, and we are working on waving. You attempted to wave at the nurse at your 1 year well appointment.

As you have become older and more aware of your surroundings, you definitely are more apprehensive around people. You used to smile at anyone and everything, but now it takes more effort to get laughs and smiles out of you. You are very ticklish, though, so that works like a charm when I want to get giggles out of you. You still have this amazing guttural chuckle. Sometimes it seems like you go straight from grunting to laughing.

As has always been the case, if there is anyone who can make you laugh the hardest just by being silly, it's Charlie. You want to always being doing whatever Charlie is doing (and you are learning how to get into things much faster since you have his example to follow). Charlie has mixed feelings about you always wanting to play with him. He likes that you are walking so you can play "chase" with him, and he loves playing catch with you. He doesn't like when you knock down his magnatile creations. But I see you both learning how to navigate in each other's space more and more each day, and it's pretty cute to watch it all unfold. By and large, you both like each other very much and you are starting to interact more each day. Charlie continues to be a big help, and has lots of opinions on my mothering skills ("put baby down" "i do it" "i'm helping" and on and on).

The cutest thing is that Charlie still calls you "Baby" all the time. I think it started because we often refer to you as Baby Leo so Charlie just shortened it to Baby. The way he says it in his sing-songy way gets me every time. BaaaaaaaaaBY. The truth is that he's not wrong. You're still Baby Leo to me, and you always will be so you might as well just get used to it.