Latest milestones

Because I have about 3 posts swirling in my head but obviously haven't gotten around to typing anything out...we'll do an update on the Riley-Bug.

13 1/2 months old already, still changing all the time and becoming such a big boy! I am amazed by him daily. Lets see, his newest things:

He gives me hugs. Randomly. I didn't even teach him to do it, he just crawled over to me one day, climbed up on my lap, wrapped his arms around my neck and laid his head on my shoulder. And my heart? It melted. Then he came back and did it again about 2 minutes later. Again, heart=melting. The other day he literally tried to climb out of the bathtub, sopping wet and with shampoo in his hair, to give me a hug. As a result I got pretty wet myself, but it was so worth it.

He increasingly wants to do everything himself. My mom swears his first words are going to be "Me do!"

Not walking yet, but he can walk with his push toys and can even get himself up to them on his own (he used to just walk on his knees and push them unless you stood him up first). I'm totally okay with the not walking yet...he's easier to catch right now!

Climbing! Oh yeah, we have a climber! Things he's tried to climb on/over: the coffee table, the bed, the babygate, the tub, the dining room chairs. He can successfully climb on and off the ottoman and the couch (most of the time).

Eating...vast improvements here! He's rejected baby food entirely, which is OK with me! But he's still a picky eater. I guess you'll have that at this age though. Loves include: strawberries, kiwi, peaches, pears, carrots, peas, any form of beef, pancakes, waffles, toast, any type of cracker, beans and cheese. Things he either doesn't like or refuses to try: ANY form of pasta, ANY form of potatoes, eggs. We're on sippy or straw cups exclusively during the day (the kid was stealing bottles from the younger babies at the sitter's!! Yep, my kid steals from babies, watch out ;) ) and we just do one bottle at bedtime. Weaning is done, so I have my body back. I had mixed emotions about weaning but it wasn't as emotional as I expected for me, thankfully. I feel good about the fact that I was able to nurse my baby for his entire first year, especially after the challenges (to put it mildly!) we had early on. When he was a couple of weeks old if you had told me I'd nurse him for 13 1/2 months I'd have said you must be crazy :)

He gets SO excited about things now and it is such fun. Makes me even more excited about all the fun stuff we can do this summer!!

He adores his pets, and they're warming up to him again, now that he's not constantly chasing them. He "plays" with Henry and it is adorable. He'll grab Henry's toy, crawl over to him and hold it up to him. Henry takes it, Riley lets go and gets a huge smile on his face. Of course then Riley wants to take it right back and "play" again :) He loves the kitties too and is pretty good about petting "gently" until he gets a little too excited and starts bouncing up and down and whacking on them....and he probably thinks the cats' names are "Gently" as much as I'm repeating that word when he's petting them! I'm beginning to be awfully glad we have cats though, since when he wakes up screaming at 4 am (twice this week!) the only thing that seems to calm him is seeing his kitties. I don't know why, but it works so I'm not questioning it :)

Miscellaneous other things...he waves bye-bye on command, he signs for "more", "all done" and "dog"-though "dog" also means cat, cow, and probably any other animal he might come across. Says "mama" and "dada", gets the biggest smile ever anytime he sees daddy, but is a total momma's boy, as anyone who meets him declares within minutes of seeing his attachment to me :) But I'll take it while I can get it, as I'm pretty sure he's going to be Daddy's little shadow as soon as he's big enough to ride along on tractors. He loves tractors!

Have I mentioned I love this age??

Goofy Boy

When Riley was a few weeks old we gave him a "binkie". He loved it from the start, he was a big "comfort sucker". It helped him go to sleep, calmed him when we were in the car, kept him from having to be permanently attached to me, it was great. Then, around 5 months or so he started spitting it out anytime you gave it to him. Then he started clamping his mouth shut when he saw it in your hand. I think he knew we were trying to get him to sleep when we gave him the binkie and we all know how that boy feels about sleep! Can't go to sleep, I might MISS something! :) So, that was that. His binkie days were over. It was a bit tiring/frustrating that nursing became the one and only way to calm him, but we were overall happy because hey, we wouldn't have to take a binkie away when he got older. It works. And as he got a bit older, he was able to be soothed in ways other than nursing (thankfully!)

Fast forward to this past Wednesday. The kid is 13 months old. He hasn't had a pacifier in about 8 months. I drop off my regular little boy in the morning, he's chewing on his hands a bit but he's always done that. Since before he was born he's had his hands in his face all the time and chews/sucks on his fingers randomly (usually when his teeth are bothering him-he doesn't like teethers, prefers his fingers). At 5:30 I pick up...a thumbsucker. :) Goofy boy. He started sucking his thumb on Wednesday. At first he seemed to be doing it when he was tired. Then it was sort of whenever he had a "pause" in his playing. I don't know if he picked it up from another little girl at the sitter who sucks her thumb, if he just randomly discovered it on his own or what. Who knows if he'll continue it or not. A few things I do know though:

• Its actually kind of cute, I have to admit.

• He thinks its a game if you pull his thumb out of his mouth, and laughs and laughs and laughs...and pops it right back in.

• I'm not worrying about it. I know lots of people will say "Oh, but he'll ruin his teeth!" "Oh, he'll get made fun of when he goes to school" "Oh, his thumb will fall off!" Ok...so maybe they don't say that last one, but I know there's plenty of other "arguments" for why you shouldn't "let" your kid suck his thumb. But I also know that if he wants to do it, I can't stop him. So why worry? In the meantime, its sort of cute, it makes him happy, and I'm hoping if he does keep it up that at least it might be a way he can soothe himself to sleep?? Since he's still not what I would call a "good sleeper" by any means :) And I'm confident that he'll give it up on his own someday. Whether that some day is tomorrow, next month, next year or when he's 3. Who knows.

• And lastly, if there's anything I've learned from being a mom for the last 13 months its that there's a lot of things that are just not worth stressing about. And realizing that has made me a better, much more relaxed mom than I ever would have imagined I'd be a year ago. What a difference a year makes!

Spring!

Things are greening up around here. And its warm! It was 90 yesterday! Ok, that's a bit much for April...but the 70s we've been having? Nice. I was going to take pictures of the green pastures and the flowers and all the spring...honest, I was. But my camera's battery was dead. Boo.

But we've been out enjoying the sunshine anyway! This morning we (Riley and me) helped out with chores. Opening and closing gates is an important skill when you live on a farm. Then we put grass seed out on all the spots that had formerly been rutted yard and were tilled up by the man who was truckless for a day last week (that would be my hubby-you'd be amazed how much he gets done when he's forced to stay home all day because the truck is at the transmission shop!) After a morning snack for the little guy, all three of us piled in the (fixed-maybe) truck for a drive to pick up our new patio dining chairs. We bought them the other night, but we'd driven my car to town (remember, truck was in the shop) so we weren't going to get them at all because they wouldn't fit in my trunk. But, luckily we live in a small county and we ran into some friends at the store we were at. Friends who drove their truck to town :) So we bought the chairs and sent them home with our friends with a promise to pick them up when we got our own truck back. Gotta love small towns/counties.

I was excited to put my new chairs out today...but I'm pretty sure we're all going to blow away soon with this wind we're having today soooo...I think we'll wait on that. My big plans of working in the flowerbeds have been postponed thanks to the wind too. So, we're hanging out inside cleaning and playing. Somebody...not mentioning any names (Riley) is especially silly today, so we've been having lots of fun! Its like he suddenly developed this big sense of humor, and everything is funny lately. I love it! I know I've been saying this for the last 8 or 9 months, but seriously, this age? So fun! It really just gets better every day.

Well, I think someone's done with the nap thing...so time for me to go. Have a happy Easter!