Anyways, how fun is it to be 13 months old? Boy is having the time of his life. He's a proficient hand-holding-walker and will stand alone for a few seconds at a time. I'm pretty sure Braden is waiting for Sol to be out of town to start walking so we can lay on the guilt when he gets home. He's finally a proficient crawler, even though he occasionally still flops on his belly to scoot around. I'm ready for those days to be over--he's ruined the front of quite a few shirts! Braden is a garbage disposal--he'll eat and eat... I don't think I've ever really seen him get full. We spent the night in a hotel on our way to South Carolina and it was TERRIBLE--neighbors complaining about his crying, driving around town to knock him out, pacing in the hallway... then five hours of all three of us sleeping in a bed before he got up bright and early at 6. Sol and I realized how blessed we've been with his sleep--he's such a great sleeper that we really don't know how to handle it when he's having a hard time sleeping.
He's getting better at expressing his preferences, he'll shake his head "NO" when he doesn't want something and can motion for what he wants. His favorite song is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and he always says "up above" in a sweet sing-y voice at the right time in the song. It's adorable. He says daddy, mama, up above, apple, tickle tickle, up please, uh oh and rhinoceros. Well ok, he doesn't say the last one. You got me. He signs more and all done, and we're working on a few more. He's picking up more and more party tricks--he can kind of show us his nose and ears, play peekaboo, blow kisses, pat his belly, do SO BIG and a couple more. He's just at that fun age where he is understanding so much of what we say and he really wants to be party of the action. Just like every month, this one's the best.
And Finley, oh man is he a wild man. He's very sweet with Braden--singing him his favorite songs and repeating the little phrases I say to Braden to calm him down. We took him to physical therapy a few weeks ago to get some exercises to strengthen his foot affected by clubfoot, so we've been working on hopping, walking up stairs with kis" or "Moms" when he isn't calling me "Izzy" from Jake and the Neverland Pirates or "Minnie." Oh the imagination on that kid. He really likes to add Y to the end of words--like when he spells his name he likes to say Eff-y Eye-y Enn-y Ell-y Ee-ee Why-ee. Say that out loud. I'm impressed enough that he can spell his and Braden's names--and even more so that he has a junior version of pig latin invented. I love this stage where he's starting to pretend (telling me that our house is flying like in "UP") and have a wild imagination about things. We have lots of fun together.
Can it be that we are half way to kindergarten? Is that how it works? Now I know why people homeschool, I can't imagine sending that nugget off on a big yellow bus. Brady and I will miss him too much.
