Happy 1 YEAR Birthday, Hunter!

1 YEAR OLD.

A year ago, we were staring at our newborn baby.. soaking in all 4.2+KG and 54cm of him. Utterly amazed that we had created a whole new living, breathing human. Remember him when he was this little?

I don’t!

How time flies. And oh how our lives have changed. I can’t quite remember what life was like when I wasn’t a mother. It suddenly feels like I’m living for something now, and he truly brings such joy into our lives… even when he drives us up the wall at times 😉

He changed dramatically in the past 1-2 months.. so much so that I kind of lost track of all his ‘new’ developments. I’m amazed at how ~1 year old babies are like mini adults – understanding what you say, following simple instructions, etc etc. It makes it SO MUCH more fun than the baby stage when they pretty much lie there and do… not much at all.

Most of all, he showers us with huge happy sloppy grins.. that have the power to melt my heart. Like this:

MONTH 11-12 PROGRESS:

• Eating – He eats solids at 8:30AM, 11:30AM, and 5:30PM… and has milk at 7:30AM, 3:00PM, 7:00PM. This schedule works really well so we’re sticking with it. He’s not the world’s most eager eater though, and unless it’s his favourite foods.. he’ll need a lot of talking to and cajoling to finish his portion. Fortunately, he loves steamed fish, avocado, tofu and bananas. So thankfully he likes healthy food! We’re also starting to have dinner together – as in I cook up food that is baby-safe (ie. low salt/oil) and so he can have the same food, which he really likes.
  I am down to…… believe it or not….. breastfeeding once every 2 days. Yeah, I’m that Mum that can’t seem to let go of breastfeeding and am clinging on desperately to it. Soon I will document my entire breastfeeding journey.. but that is an entire (and long) blog post in itself. All I will say is it is a HUGE emotional rollercoaster weaning your child, far more than I’d ever imagined. Will write more about that at some point in the future.
  He’s now fully potty-trained for poop. He simply won’t poo in his diaper anymore, but does his poo once a day once his diaper is off. The good news is that it makes life SUPER easy for me, especially since we go out every day, since I never have to worry about him pooing when we’re out and having to deal with the mess. The bad news is that he still pees in his diaper (and is probably a loooong way away from pee-trained), so we still have to spend $$ on diapers. Ah well!

 

 

• Sleeping – brought this Sleeping section back because things changed in the past 1-2 months. He’s gone from 2 naps to 1 nap a day. D’ohhhhh! This means that I don’t have quiet-time to myself in the morning, which is difficult as it’s much harder to get stuff done now. But not much I can do because he will simply refuse to sleep in the morning.. boo. Fortunately, he still clocks in his 7PM – 7AMsleep-through-the-night-without-waking habit, so I suppose I can’t complain…

  

• Motor control – can easily go from lying down -> crawling -> standing up -> sitting back down, etc. And like all his friends his age, he simply cannot get enough of cruising around the place.. which is particularly exhausting because he needs to be monitored waaaay more than before! Fortunately, he’s not the super active sort and will still look at me for approval before he grabs or chucks stuff.. so I guess I should be glad about that. He especially loves to dance to music and is currently learning to jump by himself (though he falls onto his bum upon landing).

• Talking/listening – very noisy! And now can understand a surprising amount of words, like car, wheels, elephant/giraffe/dog/pig/cat. Can also point to his head, ears and tongue when asked, and does the splish-splash action when we ask him to. Loves to brush his own hair. Ummm… just a whole bunch of stuff that will be silly for me to try and document every little thing! But obviously he can understand us now and is like a little sponge in the way he absorbs words. So we have to be increasingly careful to speak properly in front of him, not swear, etc etc.

And of course we had his 1st birthday party over the weekend – a kiddy party with a whole bunch of all his regular playdate friends. I have a few hundred photos to trawl through and so will get round to writing that one up next.

But, CRIPES, our baby boy is 1 YEAR OLD!!!! Epic. HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY, my son!

PREVIOUS PROGRESS:

• 11 months
• 10 months
• 9 months
• 8 months
• 7 months
• 6 months
• 5 months
• 4 months
• 3 months
• 2 months