Tayls of Life, Love, & Babies: 12 Months....Our baby boy is 1.

A year ago Oliver suddenly decided it was time to make his way into the world and he was thankfully much larger than the doctors expected. He was big, healthy, and just a perfect baby boy. I remember picking him up at the nursery after I took a shower and there were all these tiny little babies in pink hats and then Oliver's giant head stretching out a big blue hat. The nurses asked me which one was my baby and it was pretty easy to pick him out (and match wrist band numbers, of course). He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen and I couldn't believe how quickly I completely bonded with him. It has been a wonderful year with him learning all of his quirks, since he has been the complete opposite of his sister in every way. He definitely isn't a show-off, an attention grabber, or a ham for the most part. He likes to watch, he's so innocent, and he isn't going to rush anything for any reason. He has a very stubborn side too...when he's cranky he's CRANKY. Does he tolerate a bottle? NO way. If he wakes up and is uncomfortable in any way, I'm AWAKE too. He is just so special and we love him so much. Nick and I also love experiencing Oliver and Gabrielle together, growing up as siblings - something neither of us experienced. My brother is 21 years older than me and we've never lived under the same roof. Nick's brother is 7 years older than him, and his older sisters weren't adopted until he was in school. Watching our two little ones positively interact so much at such a young age is awesome. I adore having a son and am grateful every day for Oliver Max, our little boy blessing.

Oliver's percentiles dropped a bit, but still looks great. I think for the first time he's wider than he is tall....maybe prepping for a growth spurt soon!
29.5 inches - 36%
21 lbs 6 oz - 52%
Head - about 80%

He has a little cold or allergies (who knows) and some fluid in his ears that needs to rechecked in a month. He's pretty itchy since I've tried cheating in my diet a little so we need to start the Zyrtec again for a while. The doc also said he is teething a lot since his gums are really swollen in several areas. Other than that he is doing well! They said as long as he could pull himself to standing and support himself well, they're happy with gross motor.

11 months - army crawl

11.5 months - learned to get to sitting position by himself and learned to crawl (crawls up on his arms and scoots with one knee in front and one in back).

11.75 months - started pull up on everything possible and cruising a lot more. He also likes to crawl to the stairs and pull himself up on the first one.....then he'll push himself back and fall on his butt (and laugh)...promptly pull himself up again....fall back on his butt. The cycle continues.

He can stand unassisted for a few seconds and likes to do that.

LOVES to walk holding fingers or pushing a cart.

Can stack blocks! Quite a few times he has been able to stack one little block on top of another.

Listens to "no" quite well. You can tell he knows a lot of what he should or shouldn't do.

Sleeps with a pillow now and a larger blanket.

Likes to give things to me. Anything he can find he likes hand away.

Makes piles of stuff behind him. He will sit there and hold a toy over his shoulder behind his back and drop it. He will do this to a whole pile toys, for whatever reason.

Shakes his head "no" when he doesn't want something to eat (or when prompted to by Gabs).

Is kind of tough guy when it comes to falling, getting a little hurt, or being told no - he doesn't cry super easy when it come to that stuff. Very different from Gabs.

Is pretty vocal. Says mama for me/nurse, dah for dog, ny ny for bed, ah dah for all done, go or wah for walk, cohs for close....I think that's about it. Will repeat lot of words/sounds. The other morning Nick said "I have to poop" and Oliver started to say "oop oop" and repeating it back to Nick. It was probably one of Nick's proudest moments so far.

Is eating pretty well. He likes to drink water out of his straw cups now and we are working on coconut milk. He seems to like meat, pasta, and flavorful food. Likes watermelon, grapes, and bananas. Does pretty well with vegetables and of course loves Cheerios/crunchies. Does not really tolerate being spoon fed, not that he ever has very well.

He is still nursing 3x/day and 0-2x/night (though has slept THREE nights in a row...followed by a few 2x/night nights). I took away the 4pm feed and tried to get him to take a thawed bottle to replace it. He really won't take bottles (unless I'm gone, maybe) so I might look into seeing if I can donate my frozen milk at some point. Oliver won't take it and I don't think I could stand to see it go to waste. I'm so happy I made it to my ultimate goal of nursing for a whole year. He's never had formula (except for 3-4 ounces when he was a couple of weeks old). I'm planning on weaning him of his feed before nap, and continue to nurse morning and night at least for a while.

Wears 18 month shirts, 12 month pants, and either 12 or 18 month PJs. Size 4 shoes and diaper. He doesn't wear shoes very often but I think a 5 is coming quickly.

Sleeps 8p-7/8a. Takes one nap, about 11:30a-2/2:30p.

He has two teeth on the bottom and I four on top.