From dad: 09/18/2012

Shame on me, skipping two months, sorry.

So, I took you to a swimming class.  This class was a little odd because it was for 6 month to 2 year olds.  It's odd because the average lifespan currently is 78 years, but it's not like the difference (mentally, physically, developmentally, etc) between a 1 and 2 year old is the same as a 65 and a 66 year old.  The difference between a 1 year old and a 2 year old is more like the difference between a 20 year old and a 40 year old.  Point is, you were the second youngest kid there.  Many kids were old enough to maybe talk, but definitely listen; you're still at the point where I'll tell you to do something and you probably won't.  I'm not sure if it's because you don't fully understand what I'm asking/telling you to do or if you just don't care yet.  But, we had fun none-the-less and you finally warmed up to the water a bit.

It was around this time we finally started giving you baths in the bath tub.  The first one or two times, as soon as we put in you the tub you wanted out.  But, after that you were fine with it.  Now, you don't get all excited about it, but you don't fight it all.  You seem to enjoy it when I put you in the tub while it's filling up so you can play with the faucet.  We have a 3 men in a tub toy, a red fish sponge, a green soap holding dinosaur, a Dino bowling pin, a blue polka dot rubber duckie, a blue cup, and a little blue boat; you're really intrigued with the cup, more so than the actual toys we have.  What you do love is brushing your teeth afterwards; I've never seen you pick up a sign faster than brushing your teeth (which you came up with on your own).  So let it be known, there was at least one point in your life when you LOVED to brush your teeth.

We've moved the baby gate on the stairs up to the second landing; you seem to love being chased up the stairs.  I guess you've fallen down at least twice that I personally know of, but I assure you, that has nothing to do with me.

You really want go outside a lot now.  I think it's more because you've thoroughly explored what we'll let you explore in the house and you want something new.  You usually cry when anyone leaves; at first I thought it was because you didn't want them to leave, but now I think it has more to do with the fact that they went outside and didn't let you go.

You've started using utensils somewhat.  Grandma Judy let you go to town on some meat loaf.  There's been plenty of times you'll push away food that we offer you, but as soon as we put a spoon or fork in your hand, you want to do it yourself.  There's been a few times where you won't eat something, I'll take a bite of it, then you'll eat it.

You've really started enjoying your stuffed toys like Brown Bear, Scout, and most recently your blue bear blanky that you got the day you were born.  Some days they get more kisses than I do :-(.  Grandma says there have been some times when you play some game (e.g. throwing a ball) with her for a good amount of time.  Usually things don't interest you for more than 5 minutes or before you move on to something else, but you've been interacting with people, doing one thing, for a good longer amount of time.

Your mom is worried because she doesn't want the TV to raise you.  First off, as of right now anyway, you don't watch TV for more than 15 or so minutes; secondly we're not plopping you down in front of the TV and doing something else.  If you're watching TV then we're watching TV too.
I think that's all I can think of for the moment.

From dad: 06/22/12

OK, big news... we're officially saying you started walking on 05/20/2012.  But, even a month later you don't seem to take more than 10 or so steps, and we can't quite figure out why.  You'll walk walk walk, step step step, then... just decide to sit.  Maybe your legs are tired, maybe you lose confidence, I'm not really sure.

You had your first birthday ever.  We took a trip down to Sarasota Florida where much of your dad's dad's side of the family lives, but many of your dad's mom's side of the family came too (so, grandpa Jerry's family and grandma Jeanie's family).  During this trip, we stopped in Galveston, TX where your sister Charity took you to see the beach for the very first time; we went to your first water park, Schlitterbahn (I'm not sure I'm willing to say you really experienced this park since 80% of the time you were just in a tube zonked out); we took a day in New Orleans, walking mainly around the French Quarter, but we also took a trip across the Mississippi on a ferry.  In Florida you actually went in the water at the beach with grandma and grandpa Powell; you seemed to LOVE the sand in your toes there.  You fell in love with a little blue shovel you loved to take with you.  We went to Busch Gardens, but of course you were too small to ride anything :-(.  Your mom made you both a delicious and beautiful cake, and she also made a little one just for you.  So, you got to just make a mess of yourself while 20 or so people all gawked and laughed, you were very entertaining.  You took the driving in the car VERY well, your mother and I both thank you greatly for that.

Living in Colorado means swimming opportunities are somewhat limited, especially compared to a state that has both a warmer climate as well as ocean access, so we haven't really had a chance to get you swimming.  I really hope you love the water; in fact, just the other day I was thinking you being on a swim team would be a good example of a sport you might do that I could get behind even though it wasn't a sport I participated in (an example of a sport that might be difficult for me to get behind might be wrestling just because it doesn't particularly interest me though I've got nothing against it, but your mom loves wrestling so she could teach me all about it).  But this trip showed that you do not like that water.  Every time we get you in the water, you get clingy with whoever it is that's putting you in and it's clear you want out.

Maybe it's cold so it's painful to a degree, maybe you're scared of the unknown, maybe you're worried about something, I'm not sure.  Eventually you warm up to and you have these spurts of laughter and splashing, but mostly you just kind of zone out; maybe you've given up on trying to get us to let you out, or maybe whatever it was that was giving you problems to begin with go away.  This summer I want to take you into the pool more, probably do the baby swim class with you.  Even though we're in a land locked state, I still think it's somewhat important that you be a relatively strong swimmer.

From dad: 05/18/12

Wow, I really dropped the ball on staying up-to-date.  Six months have gone by and not a word from me; you've doubled in age since my last post.  A few things have happened; I started a new blog for a different purpose and this was turned into a blog (originally I just had this down as a document) and your mom and I decided to do this one together.  However, apparently I wasn't clear on what exactly she was expecting this to be.  I had just copied all the entries I had made and post-dated them.  Your mom wasn't happy with it, at least the first post, and we haven't really talked much about what she was wanting this blog to be.  I've been waiting a little to talk to her about it before posting more, but things are really busy right now and the longer I wait to make an update, the more stuff I'll have to remember and will probably ultimately miss.

So let's see... I've gotta look back on previous posts.  I banged your head when tossing, but I've only done that once.  That's when I learned that the ceiling in our bedroom is slightly lower than the rest of the first floor; I'm thinking that's because that's where all the air ducts are.  You gave me the look like you had no idea what just happened, but you knew you didn't like it.  You only cried a little for about ten seconds.  No tears.  There's been a plethora of times where you'll fall, throw your head back, something and bang your head; you rarely cry for more than seconds or so.  I don't toss you as much in general simply because you don't react to it as much as you used to.  You still seem to love it (usually) when I grab your legs and hold you upside-down.  Usually I'll then put you on my head (which you usually squeal with laughter, I think because my pointy head pushed into your stomach), then move you to my shoulder and hold you like a bazooka (I call it my babe-zooka, though I've never figured out which end is the more deadly... I suppose it depends on what you've eaten).

Bath time doesn't seem to really do much for you one way or the other.  You're just sitting in the sink now, but we'll be moving you to the bath tub pretty soon here.  Sometimes you like to play with the water as it comes out of the faucet, but I can't really tell if you "like" it or "dislike" it, or maybe you're just intrigued by it.  You usually like to hold your blue rubber ducky, but sometimes you'll hold on to your blue cup.  In the past month, you've gotten very interested in... a certain body part.  Maybe you just discovered it, maybe you're intrigued by the feelings since it's one of most sensitive parts of your body.  Generally speaking though, you put your hands down there which makes changing your diaper messy sometimes.

I didn't document the first time you crawled, but I marked the video as the end of March, so it was a little earlier than that you started crawling.  We were a little "worried" for a while because you didn't crawl, you did like your daddy did and did the "army crawl."  But you put your own twist on it; you did this wounded army crawl thing where it was like your right leg was dead and you were always pulling yourself forward with your right arm.  But we all worked hard with, trying to put you in the crawling position, letting you watch me crawl around (you always seemed so interested when I crawled, so I think you were taking pointers), etc.  I wasn't too worried because I supposedly never crawled myself, but you were also still so focused on standing and walking.  I find it interesting because once you started crawling, you seem to become less interested in walking. I mean, you still stand and scoot yourself around by hanging on to things, but before you could crawl, you would always put your feet down to stand if we put you near the floor.  Now that you realize you're mobile and there's a different way to get around, sometimes you don't want to stand (which is normal, but you didn't start doing this until you started crawling).  You've stood a few times by yourself, ranging between 4~10 seconds.  I've seen you take 2 "falling" steps (they were more like shuffles, and by the second step you were more falling into the chair that you were heading to).  You seem pretty reluctant to let go of things to try and walk towards us, but I've seen you transfer from one item to another without holding on (e.g. you'll let go of both hands that were holding onto the ottoman and switch to holding onto the couch).

You've got a total of 7 teeth (one was just discovered about a week ago).  You've got 4 on the top, two on the bottom, and a molar has popped through on the top on your right side.

Let's see, anything else... you're eating real food now, but still plenty of bottle (though your mom says that's going to stop in about month, when you turn 1).  You love Goldfish and Cheerios, but I refuse to let them become your "chicken nuggets" (there's kind of this... fad now where there are a lot of kids who only eat chicken nuggets and/or mac 'n cheese; your mother and I are firm believers this has more to do with the parents not forcing their children to expand their horizons).  You say "ma ma ma ma" and "da da da" regularly, but it never seems like you're calling us, or referring to us, so they're just sounds really.  Every once in a while you do this buzzing thing.  I don't know if you're just playing, experimenting, or maybe it provides some degree of relief to your mouth.

I think that's all I can remember for now.  I'll try to talk to your mom in the mean time to decide what's suppose to be here, and next time there won't be such a span between updates.