William: Twelve Months!!

Well, it's official: We have a one-year old!! A full-of-energy, constantly on-the-go, starting to develop a little bit of attitude one-year old. It's certainly trying at times, but I don't think we'd have it any other way.

At our twelve month well-visit, William weighed in at 19 lbs, 15 oz, and was 28.75 inches. We did have to make an unplanned doctor's visit shortly after eleven months due to a double ear infection, but that cleared up pretty quickly. He's still wearing size three diapers, and pretty consistently in twelve month clothing, although some nine month stuff still fits as well as some eighteen month stuff (is it too much to ask for clothing sizes to be consistent?!?). As of his birthday he also had six teeth--four on top and two on bottom. All four of the top teeth cut in the span of about two weeks, which was a little brutal to say the least (and resulted in drool EVERYWHERE).

Probably the biggest "new" thing we had to do this month was buy a pair of shoes! I don't know that I would fully consider William a "walker", but he walks often enough and is outside often enough (although in his option he could probably never be outside enough) that we figured it was time to invest in some shoes. And truthfully, I think the only thing holding him back from being a full-on walker (aside from being a little wobbly) is the fact that he can't get himself to a standing position from the middle of the room. Once he is pulled up on a toy (or couch or table or anything), his first inclination is now to walk away from the object instead of going back to the floor to crawl.

Babbling is still inconsistent at best, and it doesn't seem like his "ma-mas" and "da-das" are directed at anything, but that hasn't stopped him from figuring out other ways to communicate. He has the pointing thing figured out, and if that doesn't get your attention, he will grab at your hand and direct it toward whatever it is he wants. He's also started making up games for us to play with him--he'll hand us a block for us to put on his head, shake it off, and then hand it back to us to repeat. Of course, we'll usually end up tiring of his "games" before he does, but oh well.

It's still hard to believe that we've been parents for a full year; as Darrell likes to say he can't believe how quickly the year went but it simultaneously feels like William has been a part of our lives forever. I could probably spend an entire post reflecting on our first year as parents, but I'll save you the sappiness and cliches and just say that it was nothing like we ever expected. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a not so good way, but we wouldn't trade any of it for where we are today.