One Year Old!

Our sweet, amazing, goofy little boy is one today. This year has been crazy, stressful and wonderful, all at the same time. We love our little man so much!

2 weeks

It's been two weeks since I've blogged! Bad blogger. Lots has been going on, and maybe that's why. But of course I have to make time when lots is going on, because that's when I have the most to talk about.

Here is the abbreviated version:

We have been busy getting ready for Jonathan's first birthday and having a bunch of people - Jer's family and my huge family over to our house. We are hoping for nice weather so that we can use our new screened in porch and backyard. I am really looking forward to it!

Jonathan is incredibly fun and silly. He is moving around at quite the brisk clip and standing up with ease, even when he barely has anything to pull up on. He now imitates our facial expressions pretty well and our favorites are -

"Tthhhpppt!!!!" (tongue out, spit flying)
"Squishy Face" (an old favorite, currently making a comeback)
"Show me all your teeth" (working on this one)

Speaking of teeth, he now has two on the bottom and four coming in at the same time on the top. Every once in a while when he laughs you can see all of them, and I didn't think it was possible, but he looks even cuter with all those mini teeth.

Finally, I joked last time that he had said his first word (either "touchdown" or "uh-oh") but he doesn't know how to use it, so I don't think it really counts. But Jer and I agree that this weekend, he started using his real first word, "ball." He LOVES to roll his little basketball around the house and started calling it by name yesterday - "BAH." Sometimes he gets really excited while chasing it and babbles "ba-BAH, ba-BAH, ba-BAH."

OK, that's enough of a boring Jonathan update for now. Next time I'll post some photos, promise!

UHT-Ooooooooooo

Jonathan has officially said his first word. "UHT-Ooooooo." This either means "uh-oh", something we've been saying a lot of lately now that he is mobile, or "Touchdown!" which we have been teaching him for the last week now that football season is upon us.

Sadly, while watching Saturday's FSU game, there was not much "UHT-Ooooooo"ing to practice.

Learning to let go

Jonathan has always slept on his back at night. I have been super paranoid about SIDS and we have been lucky that even once he figured out how to flip over, he stayed put at night.

No longer.

Now, even when we place him on his back, he flips over within a couple of hours and sleeps on his tummy til morning.

Time to let go of the fear and just realize that he is getting to be a big boy, and it's ok for him to sleep on his tummy now.

::Deep breaths::

Here is how I found him Wednesday morning.

Switching Gears

Ok, so my last post was pretty "complain"y, so now that I've calmed down and Jonathan is in the middle of a nice long afternoon nap (that I successfully put him down for - woo), I would like to share some fun and happy new things in the world of Jonathan:

- He shakes his head now - I don't think he means "no" exactly, but he does it when he is annoyed or doesn't want to do something. I think it is super cute.

- He loves to give raspberries, both spontaneously and imitating us. Spit flies everywhere. Also quite cute.

- He "woofs" like a dog. It sounds like "Ah, ah, ah!" But he is definitely trying to woof.

- Sometimes when I am holding him and he gets really happy - sees Jeremy or a daycare teacher he loves - he sort of plunges his head into my chest with a big grin on his face and says "eeeeeeeee," his little "I'm so happy I can't even stand it" sound.

- He FINALLY is getting one of his top teeth in. After four months of nothing, tooth-wise.

- He loves swings and makes the cutest faces when he is on them. See below.

- He is so affectionate. He'll be in the middle of playing on the floor, come over to me, climb on my legs, pull on my shirt to stand up and squeeze my neck with all his little 11 month old might. LOVE.

Nap Nightmare

I am soooo frustrated with Jonathan's naps.

It's gotten to the point that I dread the weekends because I don't know how his napping is going to be. Which, frankly, sucks, because the weekend is our time with our baby and I don't want to dread what is basically the only time I get to spend with him.

At daycare, they are fully on the one nap schedule now. They claimed that if he was showing signs of exhaustion in the morning, they would let him sleep, but at daycare, he is so distracted by the other children and all the fun they are having that he doesn't act sleepy. He seems to be doing ok with the one nap, actually. During the week that is.

But on the weekends, he is just at home, with boring old mom and dad. He shows signs of being sleepy at 9ish, but I CANNOT get him to sleep. Jer has better luck, but even still, it is such a battle now compared with only a few weeks ago, when he was predictably sleepy at 9 and 1:30PM.

Yesterday we tried one nap but it was an utter failure. He fell asleep three times for five minute naplets in the morning as we tried in vain to keep him up. Then at 12, which is daycare's naptime, I couldn't get him to sleep, even after 30 minutes of trying. Of course Jer swept in and got him asleep in 15 minutes. How long did he sleep? 30 minutes.

All this on top of Jonathan waking up more frequently in the night and earlier and earlier in the morning lately. Plus, last night we had another episode of croup which kept the whole family up until midnight.

Now I have no idea what the right thing to do is - should we try to keep him up until 12 every day, to be consistent with daycare, even though he is clearly exhausted by then? Or should we try to put him down for a morning nap, inconsistent with the weekdays, which he is fighting off anyway?

I am angry at daycare for forcing this on us. I am annoyed that Jeremy can get Jonathan to sleep and lately I can't. And with the exception of learning to breastfeed in the early weeks, I have never been so frustrated with motherhood.