I simply can not believe that Carson will be a year old in just one month!!! Wow, what a year it has been.
Our friend Valerie Hill does such a wonderful job of capturing her son
Brax's monthly statistics on her
blog that I just have to give it a try. Thanks for the idea Val! I only wish I started doing this much earlier. I didn't realize how hard it would be to remember some of these things. I started working on Carson's baby book a few months ago and haven't touched it since. Had I started capturing this information earlier, updating his baby book would have been much easier.
HEIGHT/WEIGHT/TOOTH COUNT
My guess is that he is between 30 and 31 inches tall. He was 29 inches at his 9 month check-up (86th percentile on the growth charts). I know he has grown since then because his 12 month footed PJs are pulling on his neck. Time to retire those :-) He is weighing in a 26.2 pounds (97th percentile). He has been following the 97th percentile curve pretty much since birth! He has 6 teeth. 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. His last 2 teeth to come in were his middle two teeth and they came in the first of the year.
PERSONALITY
Carson is always happy. He is definitely the favorite at daycare and makes everyone smile and laugh. Many times he is being passed around from teacher to teacher in all of the classes. They love him! I can't tell you how many times I have heard the question, " Is he always this happy?" I hope this lasts forever...
VOCABULARY
Carson's vocabulary is still pretty limited. His first word was Momma. When we were in Florida last September, my friend Jenni heard him same some version of Momma and she told me then, he was definitely saying Momma! He has since perfected it. Especially in the wee hours of the morning when he calls for me from his crib, "Momma, Momma..." is spoken very clearly. His second word he learned within the last couple of months was Baba for his bottle. He doesn't say it all the time, but he will when prompted occasionally. And his latest addition to his vocabulary is Aye which I understand is a combination of Hi and Bye. See the "New Tricks" section below.
NEW TRICKS
Carson's favorite trick up until the last couple of weeks has been to clap. Carson loves to clap, all the time! He would wake up clapping and his last stitch effort before falling asleep at night would be to clap. Lately, his new trick is to wave. We have been working on that skill and just in the last week or two he has perfected it. The wave isn't the bending of the hand kind of wave, it is a full arm, back and forth type motion. I can't wait to catch it on the video camera. It is so cute, he will even combine his wave with the word "Aye". He waves to EVERYONE. Just yesterday Brian took him to the grocery store and he said he waved to everyone as they walked by his cart. And the day before, Carson and I walked in the house from daycare and Carson waved to our dog, Luke. Soo cute...I love it!!! He has also started to dance anytime he hears music. He likes to dance in his crib when I put music on in his room. Just the other day we were in bed hanging out, before our 6 am alarm (why do we even set an alarm when we have a human alarm clock??), and then Brian's alarm went off and Carson started dancing to the music of the alarm. Too cute! Now, anytime he hears music, he starts to bend his knees and do his cute little baby dance :-)
FAVORITE FOODS
Carson will eat ANYTHING if it is pureed. But he is still having trouble adjusting to table foods. He hates new textures. He loves his Gerber Graduates Fruit Puffs and Yogurt Melts. His all time favorite is Animal Crackers. Why do they call them crackers anyway? Aren't they really cookies? And just lately we have discovered that he loves pizza...imagine that. We are still working on introducing new table foods. I tried chicken nuggets with ketchup the other day. Don't all kids love chicken nuggets? Nope, no luck.
FAVORITE TOYS
Carson still loves remote controls and cell phones...ha! You can have any kind of toy imaginable around him and he will still go for the
remote control and cell phone. Just recently my sister Tara brought Carson a couple of books and he hasn't put them down since. We are still trying to get him to sit still while reading him books, but he does love to sit and turn the pages on his own tempo. He does love his baseball bat. Occasionally he will play with the tee it came with, but most of the time he just like to bang the bat on anything that will make noise.
FAVORITE ACTIVITIES
Carson has enjoyed walks in his stroller since birth. He still, on occasion, will hold one leg out straight and the other bent as we walk down the side walk. He started doing that when we switched to the umbrella stroller that my sisters got me for an early Christmas gift last fall. Not sure why he does it. He loves to play in the kitchen when I am cooking dinner. I will let him play in the tupperware cabinet which will generally keep him occupied until I am done cooking. He also loves to climb up the stairs with Daddy's help. Just yesterday he climbed up the entire stair case all by himself. Ugh, I hate our stairs...but I guess he needs to learn sooner than later, right?
DAILY ROUTINE
Carson usually wakes up between 5 and 5:30 and half the time we can get him back to sleep after bringing him in to bed with us until 6. The other half of the time he just wants to crawl all over us and hit our faces or pull our hair. He will eat breakfast right away - usually cereal mixed with fruit. At this time we say goodbye to Daddy as he leaves for work. If Mommy doesn't need to start work early we will usually play for 30 minutes before getting ready for work/school. Then we will walk down to daycare, which is at the end of our street, in the stroller. Carson gets a mid morning snack around 9 am which consists of a 8 ounce bottle and a small handful of finger snacks (animal crackers or cheerios). On a good day Carson will nap after his morning snack (occasionally at daycare, always at home). He HATES to miss anything! Lunch is around noon (4.5 ounce stage 3 meal) and his afternoon snack is around 3 pm (8 ounce bottle and finger snacks - cheese and crackers, cheerios, etc). His afternoon nap will generally fall after his afternoon snack. I usually get Carson between 5 and 5:30 and we come home to get dinner started. He will eat dinner between 5:30 and 6 (Stage 3 meal and fruit or whatever new table food we are trying) and bedtime is between 7 and 7:30.
DISLIKES
He HATES to have his nose wiped. But who likes that anyway. As I have already noted, he hates new foods with new textures. Check out an earlier post - trying Gerber Meat Sticks for the first time. He hates to take naps when we have guests over. He will fight sleep to no end. He just doesn't want to miss out! He isn't a fan of riding in his car seat unless someone is in the back seat with him entertaining him. I can understand this because we aren't in the car very much. Very rarely will we get in the car during the week because we walk back and forth to daycare.
FUNNY THINGS HE DID
My favorites from this month include when he waved to the kids on the playground and said "Aye" as we were walking home from daycare. It was so cute, he sat up and looked over at the playground and reached outside his stroller and waved. Of course I loved when he danced to music of Daddy's cell phone alarm. And finally, when he waived to our dog Luke when we walked in the house from daycare.
MOMENTS I DON'T WANT TO FORGET
All of them...
Thanks Val for such a great idea!
Ah, looking up at his daddy.
Love this one!!! My little man is growing up.
This perfectly depicts Carson's personality. He is always happy!
And he does have a serious side as well... he tends to stare off in space at times. Oh I wish I knew what he is thinking in those moments.
He LOVES to clap!
This one will definitely be framed...love it!
These turned out exactly as I imagined them....love, love, love these!!!
Carson had his bat in hand for most of the game.
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