3 weeks ago, Jasper turned 1. How is that possible? In the couple weeks leading up to his birthday, I was feeling very nostalgic and sentimental, thinking about first bringing Jasper home from the hospital and what it was like to just hold him in my arms and have him sleep on my chest all the time. I was thinking of how little he was and how new everything was and how tired I was!! :) It was such a different time from where we are now. He's all of a sudden such a little person! His walking ability makes a big difference because now he's able to do what he wants and go where he wants. He's so much more independent! He's walking just about all the time, but every now and then he'll still crawl somewhere. Mostly he walks, he squats down to pick things up and then stands up again, he navigates around things and changes directions well. He's gotten tall and much leaner, although there's still plenty of cheeks to pinch! He's very adventurous. He loves to climb. He's curious about everything and really looks at everything and everyone around him and takes it all in. He's the most good natured child, happy all the time, friendly and smart. He's always able to put a smile on my face!
What a big boy!!
Playing with Mama:
Making faces with Papa:
"A cake for me?"
The obligatory 1st birthday messy cake picture:
I've also been noticing in the last couple of weeks that his comprehension has gone way up. If I say where's the ball? He looks around, finds the ball and then goes and gets it! If I say a line from a book or the title of a book, he goes and finds that book and brings it to me. He's spending a lot more time sitting in my lap and reading books and he has definite favorite books as well as favorite pages within the books. He'll open a book up to the same page and insist that I read that page over and over. He's not interested in the rest of the story, he just wants that page again and again. It's so funny!
He's also really developing his sense of humor. He likes to be silly and when he knows he's being silly he looks at us with a big grin waiting for our reaction. He'll turn his pacifier upside down and then turn to us so we can see his silliness and then he giggles and turns it back the right way. He copies facial expressions and movements that we do. He loves clapping and playing peek a boo, hiding under a blanket and then revealing himself is one of his favorite activites.
He's all of a sudden much more interested in real food. He's been pretty much sticking to jars of baby food and any time we tried anything that he even slightly needed to chew, he would gag and spit up, including the puffs that just dissolve and cheerios. We started giving him the teething biscuits (that's what he is eating in the picture below) and he loved them and I guess he got the hang of chewing. All of a sudden he started reaching for whatever we were eating...cereal (he's enjoyed bowls of cheerios and milk), tacos (soft tortillas with fake meat filling), french toast, scrambled eggs, grilled cheese, quesadillas and yesterday we discovered he's a big fan of crackers and cranberry sauce! Now he's eating everything! It's so great to see him exploring and discovering what to do and what he likes! He still not doing much self feeding, other than the teething biscuits. If we put puffs or cheerios in front of him he'll pick them up and throw them on the floor, but he won't eat them. However, if we feed him from a spoon (especially if it's a grown up spoon, not his spoon) he's happy to eat them. He'll get the hang of feeding himself eventually!
It took a long time for me to be ready to stop nursing him during the night. He was waking up a once or twice a night (or sometimes more) up until a couple months ago when we decided he was ready to sleep through the night...and so were we! It wasn't so much that he was hungry, but when he woke up, he wanted soothing to get back to sleep. I kept feeling that it was easier to just get up and nurse him for a few minutes then he'd go right back to sleep and so would I. He had no trouble falling asleep at night or for naptime, so we decided to cut back on the night feedings and see if he could just fall back asleep on his own, without nursing. He adjusted very quickly and within just a few days, he realized there was no reason to wake up if he wasn't getting fed and cuddled so he might as well keep sleeping! He's pretty much slept through the night every night since then. Once or twice he's woken up, if there was extreme teething pain or something, but he's become a great sleeper. He still takes two naps a day (1-2 hours each) and then sleeps for about 11 hours each night. I'm still not sleeping through the night all the time. My body is having a hard time readjusting. I've been so used to waking up through the night that now it's hard to stay sleeping! Eventually my body will figure it out.
He's got a few words these days, but still mostly babbling. There are certain sounds that we're able to translate to mean real things, ie: ma=more, ba=ball. He's starting to be able to communicate what he wants and how he's feeling, just like a real person!! Every day something new develops and I'm so happy and proud to see how he's developing.
And, last week to show how grown up he is, we went to get his first haircut!He did pretty well, although he got a bit antsy toward the end. I loved all the little curls he was getting, but his hair was always in his face so we decided it was time. Of course, in my opinion, he's still pretty darn adorable.
