aiden + mommy twelve months update!

(to give an idea of size, that is the same picture frame shown in my 28 week bumpdate) 

TWELVE MONTHS

Aiden is currently over a year old! Now that we've made it through his first year, I'm thinking the updates will be more on a seasonal basis (: (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter). I'll continue posting pictures regularly on instagram and I will probably do photo round ups on the blog from time to time. I'll post some house project before and afters and any other written style blogs whenever I have time, but this is the last of the monthly updates! I can hardly believe how fast this year has gone by. (: 

Here's how our twelfth month has been!

MOMMY

Body:

My hair is a constant state of fly-aways everywhere haha. It takes a lot of hair clips just to make it look halfway decent unless I straighten it. But the other day I looked in the mirror and the short hair near my forehead is definitely starting to resemble bangs. If those curled bangs from the 90's were making a comeback, anyway. At least it isn't sticking straight up anymore! Success!

Exercise/Weight loss:

Total pregnancy weight gain: 36 pounds

Total weight loss: 41.8 pounds

Weight to lose for pre-baby weight: 0 pounds (goal met)

Weight to lose for pre-wedding weight (last goal): 1.2 pounds

I can't believe how close I am to meeting my goal! (: I still haven't done many "intentional" workouts yet, but we've been going on walks more and now that Aiden is walking around I am chasing him around a lot. And since it's been warm enough to play outside, we usually are out and about playing for a while every day (if it's not raining) and jumping and running around on the trampoline really gets your heart going. (: I'm excited because it's starting to get warm enough where I could work out outside...I just have to get started! (And the hardest part for me is starting haha)

Emotions:

Things have been good. Messy, but good. I've been going along well with all of the gut punches of life that have come our way recently. Now that Aiden's birthday party has come and gone, I have a lot of free time again. (Well, as much free time as you can have with an adventurous toddler! haha) It really did take so much time to plan his party, and with everything else going on, sometimes it felt like I was trying to do too much. But it was so worth all the time and effort so my baby boy could have a super special day! I have been enjoying having less on my plate, even though there have been some difficult things I've been handling in the last few weeks - the kind of things that leave a big stress ball-pit in your stomach and not the kind you want to jump in to - As always, I'm thankful for my ESTP who understands me, INFJ and all. Life can definitely be complicated, but it helps going through it with someone who holds your hand all along the way. He gets me. 

AIDEN

Height/Weight:

At twelve months, Aiden is 30 1/4 long and weighs 20 pounds 10 ounces! This puts him in the 54th percentile for height and the 34th percentile for weight! And his cranial circumference is in the 93rd percentile! (: At 20 pounds 10 ounces, he has exactly tripled his birth weight! (: 

Refresher course:

+ At eleven months, he was 29 1/4 inches long and 20 pounds 7 ounces

+ At ten months he was 29 1/4 inches long and weighed 19 pounds

+ At nine months he was 28 1/2 inches long and 18 pounds 13 ounces

+ At eight months he was 28 inches long and 18 pounds 7 ounces

+ At seven months he was 27 1/2 inches long and 17 pounds 13 ounces

+ At six months he was 27 1/4 inches long and 17 pounds 6 ounces

+ At five months he was 27 1/4 inches long and 16 pounds 13 ounces

+ At four months he was 26 inches long and 16 pounds

+ At three months he was 25 1/2 inches long and 14 pounds 10 ounces

+ At his two month check up he was 24 1/4 inches long and 13 pounds 7 ounces

+ At one month he was 22 inches long and 10 pounds 8 ounces

+ At birth he was 20 1/2 inches long and 6 pounds 14 ounces

2 weeks / 7 weeks / 15 weeks / 20 weeks / 24 weeks / 29 weeks / 34 weeks / 38 weeks / 42 weeks  

47 weeks / 51 weeks / 56 weeks

Transformation Tuesday (on a Thursday):

 1 month / 12 months

Hair/Eye color:

His eyes and hair are the same colors (dark blue and strawberry blonde). His hair is growing so much! But the hair on top of his head is so much longer than anywhere else haha. I hope his curls on the sides and back of his head catch up a little bit so that it can look kind of evened out. I realize that a hair cut would fix this, but we must also realize that I am stubborn and that that would never happen. haha. I've been using some of my leave-in conditioner on him because the back of his head gets really dry and frizzy since it's so curly in the back. I always like keeping his hair on top with the one big curl looped up out the front. It looks super cute and that's what his hair naturally wants to do anyway!(:

Routine:

His routine has been a little all over the place lately. With driving out of town a few times in the last couple weeks and having Jason home from work here and there (this makes Aiden become too excited to sleep!) his schedule has been a little crazy. But he's doing great despite all the differences in his normal routine.

Life imitating art -  yes I was actually sleeping

Sleeping:

Kind of going hand-in-hand with the "routine" part of this update, we've started the process of transitioning Aiden from two naps a day to just one. I've known for a long time that this change would be coming sooner than The Experts Say and sooner than I Would Have Liked It To, but Aiden has been doing really well with it so far and I know in my heart he's ready. Despite my every pulling-down-on-my-face feeling of, "But you should be sleeping more not less", Aiden has never been a fan of sleep. Even from newborn he didn't sleep as much in the day compared to what The Experts Say he should be doing, and when he went from three naps a day to two, he did it way sooner than The Average Baby and now here we were switching to one nap way sooner than The Average Baby. He also only sleeps about the same amount of time as an average adult does at night. When I see people saying on mommy forums that their babies/toddlers sleep 12 hours at night and go to bed at 6pm, and nap for a few hours in the day, I think my eyes could actually fall out of my head. He goes to bed at 11pm and wakes up at 7, and on a good day, naps two hours total. He's definitely at the very low end of the curve for the amount of sleep a toddler should be getting in a 24 hour period, but we love our little insomniac. (He sleeps 10 hours in a 24 hour period, the "normal", "average" is 14 hours in a 24 hour period up until two years old.) So we've been delaying his morning nap into late morning and sometimes he will still take a short (30 minutes) late afternoon nap. We will keep delaying the morning nap until the two naps can easily be consolidated into one nap that he can take soon after lunch time. He still wakes up 2-3 times a night, but I think I've gotten used to it because it feels like I hardly notice it anymore since he starts nursing in bed and we fall back asleep right away. Jason and I have been actively playing around with different variables to see what we can do to help him sleep better and for longer periods at night, but so far we haven't found it. But he wakes up happy most mornings and that's what's important. (:

Eating:

He is more keen to trying out new foods and actually eating them! He still nurses quite a bit, maybe 60-70% of his food is from nursing, but he's getting there. He's figuring out that solid food can actually be pretty good! (: In the last month he's tried pineapple, lemonade, seven layer taco dip, just a taste of ice cream, birthday cake, hard boiled eggs, and asparagus. And he LOVES tomato! (:

Clothing sizes:

He wears mostly 18 and 24 month shirts because his head is kind of big and he doesn't like it at all when shirts go over his head tightly. So shirts need to be able to be big to go on as easily as possible. (: He fits in most of his 12 month pants, but some are still way too big around the waist...and meanwhile they're too short on his legs haha. And 18 month pants are too long and definitely way too big around the waist. Oh well, haha. Summer is coming so he will probably be wearing shorts most of the time then anyway. (:

Developments:

+ He is walking around all over the place! He started walking a whole lot more on his own between the two couches in the living room. It was also there that he learned how to stand up from sitting without holding on to anything! (: Once he got that part figured out, every time he fell from walking he could just stand up from wherever he was sitting and take a few steps before falling and getting back up again. So ever since he figured that out he's gotten way better at walking. He can actually get going pretty fast! It was almost surprising the first time I saw him walk into the bathroom while I was getting ready one morning because normally he would just crawl into the bathroom. He walks outside, all around the house, he walks everywhere! He rarely crawls anymore. (:

+ Since he likes to walk outside, we are starting to have him wear shoes if we aren't at home so he can play in the great outdoors and he's been learning how to walk with shoes on too. But I do keep him shoeless as much as possible since he's still learning to walk and balance without shoes on, especially on uneven surfaces like grass, uphill, etc.

+ He still has six teeth. He has been teething like crazy still, but as of yet, no new teeth! He has been working on these ones for five or six months now, so I really really hope they come through soon because lately they have been bothering him a lot. :( I can feel raises and hard spots in his gums so it's like the teeth are just sitting there bothering him instead of coming through. My poor guy!

+ He is "talking" a lot more and will copy sounds and words you say. He has a book that sings "Jesus loves the little children" and he started singing "Dee-da" (Jesus) and humming along to it. It's so precious!

+ If you ask him to do something he says "tay" (okay). He says "dow" (down) and knows that it means for going down the stairs or being set down from being carried or in his high chair.

+ He knows what "kiss" means! (: If you ask him for a kiss and go "mmmmm" he will kiss you (if he's in the mood to kiss you anyway) haha. The other day, he was sitting on my lap and he started going "mmmm" and he leaned in for a kiss - three times! You better believe I was wiping away tears after that - my heart could have exploded! (:

+ His personality is continuing to blossom! He is so full of life, happiness, giggles, and he could talk all day or be calm and quiet just depending on his mood. (: I mean just check out all these faces! The bottom left picture of him reminded me of this Natalie Portman meme, so naturally I had to compare the two. haha

General Preferences:

+ Being outside! This basically sums up his entire life right now. Now that it's warm enough to be outside without all the snowsuits and gloves and extra layers, it means lots of exploring and adventuring outside, in the yard, at the park, you name it. (: And since Aiden is walking pretty well on his own, he loves the feeling of independence that he has when he walks around the yard, chases after birds or rabbits, plays with his trucks on the pavement, plays with the neighbor dog, chucks sand out of the sandbox (we're working on that, haha). We go outside several times a day for a little bit if it's nice out, and he's never quite ready to leave when it's time to go inside. (: I think he would choose to live outside if he could! (: 

+ He sits so peacefully during our walks with the stroller. He loves looking at all the nature and scenery around him as we go by. 

+ Cats! (: Every now and then when we go outside to play, a cat comes by for a visit! We've had two different cats come by - one that I've named Henry and the other is Pearl. Aiden loves cats, and they're super friendly for being strays. We always like it when they come to visit us. (:

+ He loves pushing buttons on anything that has a button. Remotes (any kind of electronic, really) buttons on our phones, etc. I have a cloth tape measure that has a button to retract the tape, and he will go around pushing the button and start laughing when the tape goes back inside of it. Silly boy (:

+ Climbing stairs! He's gone a few times all by himself up the stairs. One minute he's downstairs...the next he's upstairs. Ay yi yi. He's even gone up the stairs and then shuts the baby gate behind him when he's on the second floor haha! He's definitely safety oriented, like his momma! Now he's trying to figure out how to go down stairs, which I let him do if it's a few steps (like the three steps from our front porch), but obviously my heart stops for a few seconds when I see him trying to go down the steps from the very top step of the second floor! Yikes! So I haven't let him do that haha. But he likes it that he can climb down off of couches and chairs on his own now. It's all about those big feelings of independence. (:

+ As much as he likes to be independent, he still loves being held and snuggling after naps and being close (: And he gives the sweetest, arms-wrapped-around-your-neck-and-hanging-on-tight kind of hugs (:

+ Turning everything into a phone! From stud finders to calculators to actual cell phones - if it looks like a phone, he will use it like a phone. He's getting really good with his negotiating skills via phone conversation. Look at him go!

+ Anything truck related! He got a toy tractor for his birthday, and recently there's a bright and shiny new tractor that goes down our street every now and then. Whenever I see it, I make sure I get Aiden to the window so he can see it go by. (: He also likes seeing the trash truck come and basically any other kind of truck that goes by our street! He loves playing with all of his toy trucks and bull dozers and loaders and cars. (:

+ He likes to play with bubbles in the tub and splash a lot (: He also makes bubbles with his mouth while he's in the water. (:
+ He loves to color (: He scribbles with pen on paper and he also likes using the chalkboard wall that I have in my office (the black wall in the photo above). He will make a few marks with the chalk, and then he grabs a paintbrush and smears it all around. Then he walks away from the wall, laughs, then walks back to color more. Haha (:

What we've been up to:

+ Last month we started cloth diapering again, this month we stopped cloth diapering again. Haha. I really really wanted to love it, but honestly I just don't. I still love it in theory, but in practice...not as much. It wasn't the washing of the diapers or even the bulkiness of the diapers that turned me off to it, but the fact that it's very tough snapping four or more snaps on a cloth diaper on a wiggling, turning, trying-to-stand-up mid-change baby (: I may revisit them one last time when we potty train him and use them instead of pull-ups, but I have my doubts. We did do cloth for about 2-3 weeks though, so I'm happy that we did it for that long at least. (:

+ Aiden and I went to dye Easter eggs with some of the families from our church. He even got to take part in an indoor Easter egg hunt (it was snowing like crazy outside that day! haha) and he did so good! I helped him find the eggs and told him to put them in his bucket and he did (: They had a cat there too, who he made friends with right away. (:

+ Still no new updates to the upstairs bathroom, but if we go by the normal Krahnological timeline of the way things happen around here, it should be done by the end of May. ...Wow that's only a month away. Hard to believe the bathroom has been sitting there totally unfinished for seven months already. haha. Oh how time flies when you're procrastinating!

+ Instead of attending to responsibilities and doing sensible things like finishing projects that are already started and closer to completion than started, I took on an entirely new project and repainted our family room! It's not finished. But it's almost done. I mean the paint is finished. But we have a few small things left to do. Ever since the carpet was installed, the paint colors in there did not look good (but if we're being honest, I didn't like the paint colors in there from the day we finished painting it the first time around). Soooooo, I did a thing and painted it black. Jason was afraid of white after I repainted our hallway white because it's shiplap and shiplap only deserves to be painted white if it's going to be painted at all, so since he didn't like the idea of a white family room right next to the white hallway, I did the only sensible thing and painted it black. Well, to be fair, two of the walls are light gray but the other two are black. I'm going Danish modern meets industrial meets farmhouse meets 1969 Woodstock meets a Greek oceanside home meets the South West. It sounds like a lot, but to me it's a lot of YAAAAAES.

+ Speaking of Woodstock, one morning a few weeks ago I needed to run some things out to the mailbox. I was in a hurry, it was cold outside, and Aiden and I were both sick, so I bundled us both up as fast as I could. Seconds after I stepped out the door and flew down the front steps, I looked up only to see a face staring at me with the intensity as if it could see into my soul. It must have been the combination of being outside in the cold at 7am with a sinus headache before drinking my morning coffee that I wasn't expecting such a near-terrifying experience. Because let me tell you - it was way too early and decaffeinated in the morning to have someone staring into your soul. Way too early. As soon as my heart rate returned to normal, I looked down at Aiden and said, "Look Aiden, a deer!" It was standing off in the trees about 100 feet away. When I looked up again, there was another deer looking at me and I had my second set of heart palpitations for the morning. All I'm saying is that faces just shouldn't start appearing out of the wilderness at 7am.  

+ It was my 25th birthday this month! And because of such, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, which now includes the ability to rent a car. And now since I'm 25, the peoples would say that I have a fully developed decision making center in my brainy-parts (the frontal lobe) so never again will I have to ask Jason, "Which do you like better?" and so forth. Because I have a fully-capable, decisively-wonderful lobe.

+ Before I painted the two walls in the family room light gray, and after I turned 25, I asked Jason "Which do you like better - tan or gray?" - and if he thought I should change the paint colors on the two remaining non-black walls. Originally they were tan and they looked okay the way they were, but the question always remains, "But could it look better?" To which he responded:

Jason: I think that couch will look better up against gray walls. Against the tan, the couch almost looks oliver.

Marlyssa: Oliver?

Jason: oliver.

Marlyssa: ....Oliver.

Jason: oliver.

Marlyssa: Who's Oliver?

Jason: *stares blankly*

Marlyssa: You mean olive.

+ We've been going on lots of walks around the neighborhood and to the park. Aiden loves being outside! One day we stopped by the beach to see what was left of the ice at the shore and there were still lots of large ice chunks frozen into the sand. There were lots of small ice cubes along the shore too - and they were so clear! I had never seen anything like it. They looked really pretty. We came back a few days later after we had one day of 74 degree weather and all the ice was gone. So I'm glad we went when we did. (:

+ Aiden really likes when we go to the park too! He likes the swings and the slide and will crawl around through the little merry go round thing. There is a dog that lives near the park that will often come by to play fetch with Jason. Aiden laughs over and over again so hard seeing how the dog would pick up running when Jason threw the stick! (:

+ We discovered that Aiden likes playing the piano. Or playing with the keys anyway (: He got to play the piano along with all of his girl friends at church. (: Then when we went to the park, he got to play on the outdoor piano there also. He loves music!

+ Aiden turned one! We started the day by bringing him downstairs to show him his new toys: a truck, a rocking moose (because what else?) a nightlight, and some books. He got to play a little before having breakfast and then he had his morning nap. While he slept, I took pictures of his smash cake (: After he woke up, I got him dressed in his birthday onesie, I put an old bed sheet on the guest bed, along with him and the cake, we sang happy birthday, blew out his candle...and then we let him have at it. (: It took him a while and some showing him of what he was supposed to do, but before long he was "splashing" his cake the same way he does in the tub and icing was literally flying! haha! 

Then he had a bath to get all cleaned up, we went out and got pizza for lunch and on the way home he got his very own birthday balloon. We went on a walk to the park in the late afternoon so he could play for a bit. After that, since his birthday was on an open swim day at the high school, he got to go swimming! He had a blast! I'm happy that we got to keep him busy with fun family activities all day long because his birthday is at a unpredictable time of year up North here. We didn't have any snow left on his birthday (so we couldn't do any snow-type activities) but it was also too cold to be outside for very long. But he had a really good day and I was happy to see him so happy. (:

+ Aiden also had his first birthday party and he had so much fun! I was a little bit worried at first because he slept so long in the morning that day that I actually had to wake him up for his party while people were arriving. But Jason had blown up lots of balloons the night before, and we had them all over the floor for kids to play with and I really think that helped Aiden warm up to there being extra people around. He did really good playing with the other kids and he had fun feeding Jason (because Aiden wasn't really into eating the food himself, haha), he got to have Happy Birthday sung to him, blow out his candle and smash another cake! He liked tearing open his presents and he really enjoyed all the cool trucks and summer toys and outfits he received. (: You can view lots of pictures from his birthday party here!

+ We went out of town twice this month, once for my birthday and once so Jason could pick up his compound bow. For my birthday we did some thrift shopping, Chipotle-eating (since we don't have one where we live and because the guac is amaze), and we stayed the night there since it's a three hour drive each way. On the day of my birthday trip, we drove past a street called Piedmont Avenue. Madness ensued. Well not really. But if you've ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall inside the truck as we go road trippin', here's a glimpse:

Marlyssa: How would you like to live on Piedmont Avenue? Ah, the mount of Pied. Let's name our next child Pied.
Jason: Pied peed his pants.
Marlyssa: *laughter* With my sense of humor you'd think I was five, not twenty-five.
Jason: Wouldn't it be something if you had been going backwards in age all this time? The rental car companies wouldn't know what they had coming. Qualifies for low insurance rates: needs booster seat.

--

And now, a delightfully interpretive song played with the tambourine that Jason got for me from eBay so that I can dance to folk music with my band of people.

I gave him two m&m's and this is what happened

making his best william baldwin face

meeting Pearl

As  always, you can check out more of our adventures (with frequent updates)

by following me on instagram - @marlyssa

Happy twelve months, Aiden - my baby Birthday boy! You're growing so big that you're more of a big boy now than anything - but you'll always be my baby. I've seen many-a-mom watch their sons grow up and meet big life-milestones. And when they see their son, they see their baby boy. I'm starting to understand that. Sometimes when we wake up in the middle of the night and it's dark, the way I picture you in my head is how you looked when you were teeny, tiny teeny. And now you're walking around and learning new things every day - you're blowing our minds, Smula! How can it be that just a year ago, the walking, baby-talking little boy you are now couldn't hold his head up without support, was so tiny that your length spanned my width - all the countless hospital visits and that newborn haze your daddy and I were in - it's going by a lot faster than I would have anticipated or would like it to. It's hard seeing every day go by and letting you go little by little. But every new day is a new adventure. Every day you're learning new things and finding new ways to make us smile and cry those happy tears. Seeing you so happy and your soul so full of love makes me feel like I'm actually doing something right - and if there's anything in this world I want to get right, it's this - raising you to be a happy, well-rounded boy, surrounded by the love of family and home. When you wrap your arms around me and squeeze so tight - I will remember that feeling forever. When you go "mmmm" before leaning in for a kiss - I will treasure it always. And I will never forget the way you curl up and rest your head against me when you want to snuggle. I can't believe how fast this first year has gone by - and more so, that tomorrow you will already be 13 months old!(: Being your mom has been so rewarding in so many ways - I have grown and become stronger too. Some days are hard - and some days are scary - the feeling of having my heart going walking around outside my body - but to see you growing and flourishing....happy. ....oh, it's like none other. 

I love you. 

Here's to all the months and years to come.