Hello.
It’s me.
(I really couldn’t resist)
It’s been over a month without a blog post, which I think may have been one of my longest breaks ever. It was unintentional initially, I was just busy with life/baby/holidays/etc. But as time went on, I felt like it might be good to take some time away from this space to see if I really felt like coming back. It’s no secret that I haven’t had as much time to blog ever since Henry came along, and I didn’t want to just keep going through the motions if my heart’s really not in it. But the good news is I did actually miss blogging over the past month! Taking some time away made me realize that it’s not something I’m ready to give up just yet. I do think that I need to adjust my expectations in terms of what’s realistic for me in terms of frequency but I’m excited about some potential ideas for the upcoming year. But I’ll probably talk a little more about that in a future post, so stay tuned! Now on to the point of this post…Henry’s TWELVE month update!
Although
I can hardly believe it, my baby turned a year old a week ago. His
first trip around the sun feels like such a major milestone, both for
him as well as for Cameron and I as parents. We celebrated with a
‘winter ONE-derland’ birthday party last weekend and I can’t wait to
share the photos from that soon. I know I’m (very) biased, but Henry is
seriously the best. He’s such a sweet, funny, loving little guy and I’m
so in love with this stage he’s at now. Even though these updates have
felt a little tedious sometimes, I’m glad I did them because it’s fun to
be able to look back and see how far we’ve come.
So without further adieu, here’s what Henry is up to at twelve months old…
Stats:
We
had his one year well check last week and it went really well! We
actually switched to a new pediatrician that’s a little closer to our
house and I’m super happy with her already. Henry is growing right on
track; he weighed 22lbs 5oz and measured 30.75 inches, putting him right
around the 70th percentile for weight and above the 80th percentile for
height. (He was also over 90th percentile for head circumference,
taking after his parents) He
still only has 4 teeth and there aren’t really any signs that he’s got
new ones coming any time soon. I was hoping to get him a hair cut before
his birthday because his hair is getting pretty long and hangs in his
eyes sometimes, but I still haven’t had a chance, plus I didn’t want
them to totally hack it before his first birthday party. I’ll probably
get around to it sometime in the new year 🙂 His hair is still blonde,
his eyes are grayish brown, and he still has his dimples he had when he
was born. He’s also officially walking!
had his one year well check last week and it went really well! We
actually switched to a new pediatrician that’s a little closer to our
house and I’m super happy with her already. Henry is growing right on
track; he weighed 22lbs 5oz and measured 30.75 inches, putting him right
around the 70th percentile for weight and above the 80th percentile for
height. (He was also over 90th percentile for head circumference,
taking after his parents) He
still only has 4 teeth and there aren’t really any signs that he’s got
new ones coming any time soon. I was hoping to get him a hair cut before
his birthday because his hair is getting pretty long and hangs in his
eyes sometimes, but I still haven’t had a chance, plus I didn’t want
them to totally hack it before his first birthday party. I’ll probably
get around to it sometime in the new year 🙂 His hair is still blonde,
his eyes are grayish brown, and he still has his dimples he had when he
was born. He’s also officially walking!
Health:
At
our one year appointment, our pediatrician told us that in this first
year, kids get an average of 10-12 colds during the winter months.
That’s why it’s hard for me to remember exactly every little cold Henry
gets these days because it seems like he (and all of his little
playmates) sort of have perpetual runny noses and lingering coughs right
now. Thankfully though, he didn’t have any real major colds over this
past month, which was good because I had my fingers crossed that he
wouldn’t be under the weather for his first birthday party. The only
other issue is over the past month, he’s had some red spots on his thigh
that seemed like they could be dry skin or eczema, which he’s never had
before. He had some really dry patches on his legs too, but the red
spots were a little concerning. However, they didn’t seem to be
spreading nor did they seem like they were bothering him, so I just
tried to keep his legs moisturized and figured I’d ask about it at his
one year appointment. Well of course at his appointment they had gone
away and his legs were perfectly smooth and fine…ha! Which is great,
except now less than a week after his appointment they’ve returned, of
course. It’s pretty mild though and the pediatrician told me that what I
described is probably just dry skin/very mild eczema so I’ll just keep
an eye on it I guess. But overall, Henry has been a very healthy boy
over his first year of life and for that I’m so very thankful 🙂
(Additional
note: I was trying to write this update just to reflect the past month
up until Henry turned one. But right after his birthday last week, he
came down with a little cold. Saturday, he had a low grade fever, and yesterday morning he woke up with red spots on his face, hands, legs, and
feet. I took him to the pediatrician yesterday afternoon and it turns out he has hand foot
and mouth disease. Blergh. His fever is gone and beyond the spots, he
seems to be feeling just fine thankfully. But since it’s so contagious, we’ll
probably be laying low from now until Christmas which is kind of a
bummer. But he’s been pretty healthy his first year of life so I really
can’t complain too much!)
our one year appointment, our pediatrician told us that in this first
year, kids get an average of 10-12 colds during the winter months.
That’s why it’s hard for me to remember exactly every little cold Henry
gets these days because it seems like he (and all of his little
playmates) sort of have perpetual runny noses and lingering coughs right
now. Thankfully though, he didn’t have any real major colds over this
past month, which was good because I had my fingers crossed that he
wouldn’t be under the weather for his first birthday party. The only
other issue is over the past month, he’s had some red spots on his thigh
that seemed like they could be dry skin or eczema, which he’s never had
before. He had some really dry patches on his legs too, but the red
spots were a little concerning. However, they didn’t seem to be
spreading nor did they seem like they were bothering him, so I just
tried to keep his legs moisturized and figured I’d ask about it at his
one year appointment. Well of course at his appointment they had gone
away and his legs were perfectly smooth and fine…ha! Which is great,
except now less than a week after his appointment they’ve returned, of
course. It’s pretty mild though and the pediatrician told me that what I
described is probably just dry skin/very mild eczema so I’ll just keep
an eye on it I guess. But overall, Henry has been a very healthy boy
over his first year of life and for that I’m so very thankful 🙂
(Additional
note: I was trying to write this update just to reflect the past month
up until Henry turned one. But right after his birthday last week, he
came down with a little cold. Saturday, he had a low grade fever, and yesterday morning he woke up with red spots on his face, hands, legs, and
feet. I took him to the pediatrician yesterday afternoon and it turns out he has hand foot
and mouth disease. Blergh. His fever is gone and beyond the spots, he
seems to be feeling just fine thankfully. But since it’s so contagious, we’ll
probably be laying low from now until Christmas which is kind of a
bummer. But he’s been pretty healthy his first year of life so I really
can’t complain too much!)
Likes:
As
soon as he figured out how to walk, he’s been obsessed with it ever
since and loves walking everywhere now. He also loves picking stuff up
and carrying it around. He’s obsessed with the remote control and tries
to get it any chance he can. He loves splashing in Lola’s water dish any
chance he gets, and is constantly going into the kitchen to try to do
it. He really likes playing with his friends and it’s so much fun to
see them interact more and more now. He also “plays” with Lola more
these days, meaning he’ll walk around and she’ll follow him and he
laughs. He loves seeing how loud he can make his voice, especially if
we’re in a loud space where it can echo. He loves any sort of cabinet,
door, or drawer that he can try and open and he’s constantly exploring
and investigating. He likes FaceTiming and it’s fun that he can interact
so much more now and gets excited about it. We’ve taken him to the kids
area at the science museum a few times over the past month and he seems
to love that because there are lots of fun, age appropriate things to
play with. He also seems like he likes the rain, which is good because
we’ve been getting a LOT of it lately. And surprisingly, he’s been
pretty good with the Christmas tree and has left it alone for the most
part. But there are a couple specific ornaments he likes trying to take
off all the time 🙂 He is also completely enamored by anything with
wheels! If we’re somewhere with other moms/babies, he always goes
straight for one of the strollers because he just wants to examine the
wheels and try to push it back and forth. We were actually at the
science museum on his birthday and there was an older lady in a
wheelchair in the kids area. Henry immediately speed crawled over to her
and grabbed on to the wheel of her wheelchair and tried rocking it back
and forth. (Insert monkey covering eyes emoji here) Thankfully, the
lady thought it was pretty funny but yeah, he loves anything with
wheels!
soon as he figured out how to walk, he’s been obsessed with it ever
since and loves walking everywhere now. He also loves picking stuff up
and carrying it around. He’s obsessed with the remote control and tries
to get it any chance he can. He loves splashing in Lola’s water dish any
chance he gets, and is constantly going into the kitchen to try to do
it. He really likes playing with his friends and it’s so much fun to
see them interact more and more now. He also “plays” with Lola more
these days, meaning he’ll walk around and she’ll follow him and he
laughs. He loves seeing how loud he can make his voice, especially if
we’re in a loud space where it can echo. He loves any sort of cabinet,
door, or drawer that he can try and open and he’s constantly exploring
and investigating. He likes FaceTiming and it’s fun that he can interact
so much more now and gets excited about it. We’ve taken him to the kids
area at the science museum a few times over the past month and he seems
to love that because there are lots of fun, age appropriate things to
play with. He also seems like he likes the rain, which is good because
we’ve been getting a LOT of it lately. And surprisingly, he’s been
pretty good with the Christmas tree and has left it alone for the most
part. But there are a couple specific ornaments he likes trying to take
off all the time 🙂 He is also completely enamored by anything with
wheels! If we’re somewhere with other moms/babies, he always goes
straight for one of the strollers because he just wants to examine the
wheels and try to push it back and forth. We were actually at the
science museum on his birthday and there was an older lady in a
wheelchair in the kids area. Henry immediately speed crawled over to her
and grabbed on to the wheel of her wheelchair and tried rocking it back
and forth. (Insert monkey covering eyes emoji here) Thankfully, the
lady thought it was pretty funny but yeah, he loves anything with
wheels!
Dislikes:
I’m
having a hard time thinking of any new dislikes for this month. There
were a few times that he was nursing where he bit me, not super hard but
enough for me to involuntarily go “OW” really loudly and that made him
burst into tears. Thankfully though, that hasn’t become a habit 🙂
Overall, he’s just a happy guy and doesn’t have many dislikes. Still not
a fan of going in his car seat, having his diaper changed, or having
his nose wiped, but other than that, he usually fine with most things!
I’m
having a hard time thinking of any new dislikes for this month. There
were a few times that he was nursing where he bit me, not super hard but
enough for me to involuntarily go “OW” really loudly and that made him
burst into tears. Thankfully though, that hasn’t become a habit 🙂
Overall, he’s just a happy guy and doesn’t have many dislikes. Still not
a fan of going in his car seat, having his diaper changed, or having
his nose wiped, but other than that, he usually fine with most things!
Wears:
He’s
growing out of his 12 month clothes and moving up to size 18 months,
but still fitting ok in brands with 12-18 month sizes. (And he’s up to
size 80 in Hanna Andersson) He’s still in a size 4 shoe I think, but now
that he’s officially walking, we need to go have his foot measured
again. He’s also still in size 4 diapers and we’re still using Honest
Co.
Eats:
Still
nursing and I’m so happy we made it to my goal of a year! That feels
like a huge milestone and there’s a part of me that can’t believe we
made it this long. Honestly, after those first few difficult weeks,
nursing has been super easy and I’m so that we were able to make to
stick with it because it’s been a great experience. I was trying to
nurse him at least 4 times a day, but as we got closer to his birthday,
there were a few times that it seemed he only wanted to nurse 3 times a
day. So now that’s what we’re doing moving forward and we’ll eventually
continue to taper down as time goes on. His eating seems like it can be a
little hit or miss because some days he’ll eat a lot and then others he
just wants to feed everything to Lola or not eat, but I guess that’s
pretty normal. He seems to love sweet potato pancakes, bananas,
smoothies, any sort of meat, and things I make for dinner like shepherds
pie, spaghetti squash with meat sauce, and soup/chili. (Still not a big
fan of green veggies but we’re working on it) We’re also starting to introduce some cows milk and so far he seems to like it!
Sleep:
This
past month, he definitely started to majorly transition to one nap. As
much as I would love for him to take two naps a day, having him take one
longer nap in the middle of the day seems to be much easier to plan
around schedule wise vs. two naps that were kind of moving targets in
terms of time he’d go down/duration. Henry usually goes to bed sometime
between 8:30-9 and he was sleeping straight through the night until at
least 8am, so I’m really thankful for that! We don’t have a super
complex bedtime routine, basically he gets dinner, then a bath (every
other day in the winter usually though so that way his skin doesn’t get
too dry), and then I take him up to his room to read him a story (and
even if we read other books, we always read Goodnight Moon – it’s kind
of an odd book as this article points out,
but something about the rhyming and repetition is strangely soothing!)
and then nurse him. He used to fall asleep at the end of nursing and I’d
just put him in his crib, but now he’s usually always awake when he’s
done nursing, so I’ve been reading to him after we finish nursing, and
then putting him in his crib awake. I’m hoping this will help make the
transition easier once we eventually stop nursing before bed! He’s
definitely a great little sleeper and will usually only fuss a little
when I put him in his crib before immediately conking out. When
he goes down for his nap usually depends on when he wakes up in the
morning/what we have planned for the day, but he usually goes down
somewhere between 12:30-2 and then he’ll sleep for anywhere from 1.5-2.5
hours. He did have a little bit of trouble sleeping when we were
traveling to New York over Thanksgiving; because Cam and I were in the
same room as him, he’d cry to get out of the pack and play when we’d put
him down at night. But once I finally got him to fall asleep, he slept
through the night until morning without a problem. He also seemed to
take two good naps a day in his stroller while we were there walking
around, so that was great!
Favorite Things:
He got quite a few new toys for his first birthday so he’s been having fun playing with everything so far. This toy lawn mower is already a favorite though! He loves this tambourine and this gear toy that
he got for presents from my family while we were in NYC. He enjoys
books a lot and I love adding new ones to his collection (this one and this one
were some recent favorite additions). He really likes to drink out of
straw cups the best, and so far we’ve had the best luck with the Munchkin ones.
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| He is loving climbing these days and I could not get him to sit down in that chair for the life of me so it’s probably good we’re stopping with these monthly photos 🙂 |
Milestones:
-Started letting go of things and standing without support on 11/19
-He took a step or two prior but he really walked for the first time on Saturday 11/28
-Once he started walking, he hasn’t looked back and very quickly progressed to being able to walk around the whole house/for long distances without falling
-Once he started walking, he hasn’t looked back and very quickly progressed to being able to walk around the whole house/for long distances without falling
-He took his first trip to NYC and did great! He rode on the subway, went to the Children’s Museum, and played with his aunt and uncle’s cat 🙂
-He had his first Thanksgiving (as well as a friendsgiving with some of our Hike It Baby friends)
-We completed our second HIB 30 Challenge and managed to get outside and walk over 30 miles in November!
-Henry is really vocal and has a couple of words under his belt. He says mama and dada all the time and he seems to understand their associations which is so cute 🙂 He also says go, tries to say Lola (he says a two syllable word that sounds like he’s trying to say it), and sometimes says no. He’s been saying these for awhile (I just forgot to mention it in his last update!) and he’s just recently started saying “uh oh” when he drops something now. I am excited to see all the words he’s going to learn in the coming year!
-Henry’s started pointing a lot this month which is so cute 🙂
-He had his first experience at the Christmas tree farm, and even though this is technically his second Christmas, it feels like it’s really his first one since we were still in a newborn fog during the holidays last year.
-He’s gone to some first birthday parties of a few of his little friends that also have December birthdays! I feel really lucky to have made friends with a handful of moms that have babies that are really similar in age to Henry (as in a few days apart) and it’s been so cool to watch them all grow over the past year!
-He had his first birthday party, complete with his own smash cake 🙂 More pics to come soon!
-He had his first birthday party, complete with his own smash cake 🙂 More pics to come soon!
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| You can see all of his monthly updates here |
Henry has changed so much over the past year and I feel like Cameron and I just get more obsessed with him every day! I wanted to write some long emotional tribute about just how much we love him, but I can’t put it in to words. (Plus, I’m pretty tired…ha!) But we couldn’t be more thankful for his joyful presence in our life and can’t wait to see what this next year brings!
