13 Months

This month has felt like years. DH and I agree. I have no idea why! Maybe because Benjamin is changing so fast, so there is NO WAY that his birthday was only a month ago. But its more than that! It could be because we were sick, because we were both busy with work... I really do not know.

So, a bit about the boy at 13 months, now that we made it here.

He walks, he runs, he climbs. He stands on his rocking chair. Yes, he does. Pretty incredible.

He likes to stir. He will take any bowl like container and a spoon and just walk around pretending to stir it. Occasionally I show him how to pretend to feed his doll, but mostly he just stirs.

He likes to read books. He LOVES to read books. Right now his favorites are Baby's First 100 Words, Jemima Puddle Duck (a sound book), Pride and Prejudice Counting Book, and anything that has flaps or pieces for him to move. He will look at them on his own. If he wants you to read it he will bring it over to where you are sitting and turn around and back into you, trying to sit on your lap (or if you are on the couch waiting to be pulled up onto your lap. It is adorable.

We have been working on hugs. DH calls them "wrap ups". Sometimes Benjamin will go around and find all the hugable things in the room (his doll, stuffed animals etc) and hug them all in turn, or give them to one of us to hug. He likes it when he hugs a teddy bear while we hug him.

Sleep has been going much better. I won't post much about it because you see it in the sleep diaries.

His comprehension of what we say is mind boggling. Its so cool to have him actually understand us when we say things like "Lets go upstairs" "Sit down" "lets put on your shoes" "Go get your X" (teddy bear, cup, pacifier, block, ball, etc).

His vocabulary is still pretty much "Up", "more" and occasional attempts at other noises. I really am pushing for Mama... but no luck yet. He can make the sounds, but he does not use it to refer to me yet. He has tried to say other words like "out" "eye" "bear" and many others.

He eats like a champ, pretty much anything we give him. He still loves Pizza. His latest favorite food is oranges. He chugs whole milk like its going out of style. I still breastfeed him in the evenings and nights. He tries to use his fork some, but also just bangs his fork a lot.

He likes to chase the cats and try to tackle them.
He makes us laugh ALL the time.

We just love him!