Happy Belated Birthday R!!!

I started writing this on March 3rd. I guess I got busy...

As he approaches his first birthday I thought it would be nice to share all the wonderful things he does. R still loves to snuggle. He will pick up a babydoll and hug it. He also pats it's back while he rocks the baby and if you ask him to give baby a kiss he licks her head. He kisses on command but it is mostly a noise to him.

Yesterday I handed him his snowsuit, he hugged it, waved bye-bye, and said what sounded just like bye. If people leave our house or he hears "Hi", "Hello", or "Bye" his arms waves.

R loves tunnels. He tries to climb under anything he can get his head into. He especially loves it when you sit on the floor with your knees bent up so he can squeeze under your legs. he will keep going back and forth through the tunnel. He also likes to crawl behind you and play peek-a-boo with whoever else is in the room.

Climbing is another activity he loves. In A and L's room, he climbs onto L's bed, stands up on it and climbs over the end rail on A's bed and then topples onto the mattress. Once on the bed he hollers until you get him off the bed as he hasn't figured out how to get off. Once off the big bed, he is back onto L's bed to begin his course again.

And to finish it off as he is now 1 and a few days...

R is walking! Not like before when we could force him to walk between us but honest to goodness walking. He started about a week ago where he would stand up and go. He would walk until he fell (or tried to jump and lost his balance) and then stand right back up to walk to his destination. He can now walk anywhere in the house. He has given me quite a few frights as he loves to walk to the top of the stairs and look down them. He is still quicker at crawling but his walking speed is improving everyday.

R is doing well with eating. He has self regualated his bottle intake and doesn't drink out of them much anymore. He loves to self feed and is great with a fork and plate. He will hand us the fork so we can stab his food then he will put it into his mouth. He will also eat off a plate nicely until he is full then the plate ends up on the ground. He is the only little one of ours who has never reached for the spoon while being fed. This makes for a very clean eater!

As for language, not a lot of words. R communicates very well with pointing and cute sound effects. He babbles and tells stories in his own language daily. He does know "mama" and who I am and makes the initial sounds of the words: hi, eat, more, bye, Ashton, up, one, and dada to get what he wants. Actually, hi and bye sound correct when he says them... His sign language is coming along as well. He can do the signs for eat, more and all done, which are the most important to our little 24 pounder. He also made up his own sign for night-night, waving one arm, a mix between bye and all done.

Yesterday I was getting a new diaper out of his room and he followed me, walked up to his bed and did the night-night sign. I pulled him to the living room, changed his diaper and had him walk back to his bed for a nap. He followed without hesitation, walked up to his crib, signed night-night again and I put him into bed. He whined for a second or two but by the time the door was shut he was quiet and trying to sleep. He has been our best sleeper by far. Last night we were up twice with L (she has a cold) and once with A (he had a nightmare) and not once with R. He slept from 7:30 until almost 8 this morning!