Luke’s 12 Month Update

So Luke’s actually almost fourteen months old now, but hey,you win some, you lose some! I’ll be sharing the details of Luke’s 1^stbirthday party later this week, but wanted to post a 12 month update in themeantime. He is officially a toddler and I can’t get over that fact…the firstyear of his life has flown by and as hard and crazy as the newborn stage was,it seems like I blinked and skipped ahead a few months.

SO much has happened since the last update. I’ll go into more details below, but we had some more ear infections, had a procedure to puttubes in his ears, started walking,  celebrated his first Halloween, we had familyin town for Thanksgiving, and then celebrated his 1^st birthday twodays later.

Stats

Luke clocked in at about 21 pounds at his 12 month checkup.Despite the fact that he eats so much all day long, he’s still around the 30^thpercentile for weight. I think he’s just so active that he burns off all hiscalories throughout the day! He’s in the 75^th for height and hishead size is in the 50^th.

Eating

We have been pretty lucky in the eating department. Luke hasn’t seemed to meet a food he doesn’t like yet (except that one time we tried pureed turkey, which let’s be honest…smelled like cat food and there was NO WAY I would have eaten that either!). At 12 months, he is eating pretty much everything we eat, which is great. We typically make dinner after he goes to bed and then save some for him to eat the next night for dinner. Ideally we would all eat dinner together, but it just doesn’t work out for our schedules right now. Hopefully as he gets older we can start to have family dinners!

He eats most of his meals at daycare and I swear he loves that. One morning I stayed with him a little longer and gave him his breakfast at home and he refused to eat it. I finally gave up and took him to Daycare where he marched over to the little table and immediately gobbled everything down. There are a few other kids right around his age that all eat together and I think he just enjoys eating with his “friends” as part of his routine every morning!

Right now we are packing all of his food – I have plans todo another post with toddler meal ideas, so stayed tuned for that if you are inneed of some ideas! He eats breakfast, morning snack, lunch, and then usuallytwo separate afternoon snacks (boy can EAT!) before we pick him up and bringhim home for dinner. We dropped all bottles and transitioned him over to wholemilk right around 12 months and he hasn’t had any issues with the changes(thank goodness! He seemed to outgrow his milk protein allergy so fingerscrossed we don’t have to deal with that anymore).

Sleep

Luke has turned into a pretty decent sleeper! He had four back to back ear infections which definitely threw sleep off a bit, but other than that, he typically falls asleep by 7:30pm and wakes up around 7:00am. We did hit a little regression right around 12 months where he woke up crying about an hour after we put him down which he’s never done before, and also had a few mornings of early wake ups, but after about a week or so he was back on track and sleeping like a champ.

Schedule

We are still pretty devout Moms on Call schedule followers over here (when we can). For the most part he eats exactly on schedule and we nap according to the schedule when he’s home on the weekends and just hope for the best at daycare. They follow the nap schedule for the most part, but occasionally it doesn’t work out, which is fine! He is transitioning into the next classroom right now and will be on that classroom’s schedule moving forward (One nap a day! On a cot! Ah!) but for the past few months we have been following the following schedule

7:00 am – Wake up! Drink about 4 oz of whole milk

8:00 am – Get to daycare and eat breakfast

9:00 am – Sippy cup of milk/snack

10:00 am – Nap

12:00 pm – Lunch & sippy cup

1:30 pm – Nap

3:00 pm – Snack & sippy cup

4:30 pm – Pouch

6:00 pm – Dinner & sippy cup

6:45 pm – Books & finish sippy cup from dinner

7:00 pm – Bath time

7:15 pm – Diaper, Pajamas, Brush Teeth, Cuddles

7:30 pm – Sleep

Other

As I mentioned above, we had a pretty rough go for a few months with four back to back eat infections. We finally got a referral for an ENT and he recommended getting tubes put in Luke’s ear. Luckily we were able to get it scheduled quickly and after running through a few hearing tests, we had the procedure done right before Thanksgiving. It was a rough morning  – he wasn’t scheduled until 9:00am but we had to be at the facility at 6:00am and he couldn’t have anything to eat or drink after midnight. We did our best to entertain him and distract him until it was time to bring him back. Blake went back with him until they had administered the anesthesia (I didn’t know if I could handle it!) and then we waited. It was a very quick procedure but he was extremely irritable coming out of the anesthesia and was totally inconsolable for about an hour and a half. They sent us home after about 30 minutes, and luckily he ended up falling asleep and then woke up his happy self.

The tubes have helped SO MUCH already. We ended up in Urgent Care the night before his birthday (never a dull moment around here!) due to some wheezing when he was breathing, and it turns out he had bronchiolitis. Poor guy! It didn’t seem to bother him, and he bounced back pretty quickly. We followed up at the end of the week with his primary care physician and she said his ears were completely clear and that there’s no way they would have been without the tubes!

He also started officially walking right after the tubeswere in – I really think they helped with his balance! He had been taking somesteps here and there, but was off and walking everywhere within a day or two ofthe procedure. I love watching him being so independent and walking around…there’s nothing cuter than a one year old in little shoes marching around!

We celebrated a lot of holidays over the past few months! Luke was a fireman for Halloween and I was able to go to his parade at Daycare which was the best thing ever. The children in the infant classrooms were either carried around or pushed in the buggy (which he LOVES) and he was so entranced by all the other kids in costumes. We took him to a few houses in our neighborhood before bedtime – I can’t wait for next year!

Next up was his first Thanksgiving. We celebrated with my parents and Blake’s dad and sister and it was a great day filled with family. Two days later (while Blake’s family was in town), we hosted his 1^st Birthday party with some of our friends and family. Luke looked so confused when put the cake in front of him and it was so fun to watch him try it (note to my future self – don’t use BLUE icing on the next smash cake). I shared some gifts ideas for a one year old here in case you missed it!

Whew! I think that pretty much covers most of it! We’reprepping for his new classroom/schedule, currently getting over the flu, andI’m still trying to figure out how to balance being a working mom (I’m not sureI’ll ever quite figure it out!). Our lives are completely, 100%, without adoubt better with Luke in them. I absolutely love being a mom and would doanything for that little boy. He is so funny and independent and watching himlearn and experience things for the first time is unbelievable. He says Dada,Mama (but definitely says Dada more), and Nana (for banana…which he is obsessedwith) and signs multiple things (more, milk, all done, food/hungry). I actuallytaught him what I thought was All Done (I would wipe/brush my hands togetherand say All Done) and now he does that…but Blake was looking up something elseand discovered that’s All Done is a completely different sign so I have no ideawhat I actually taught him J

I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store. Our sweet babe definitely keeps us on our toes and I wouldn’t have it any otherway.

Xoxo,

Lauren