Height/Weight: Well, I've been to the doctor twice since his last update thanks to some seriously annoying nursing issues (I'm looking at you mastitis), but he hasn't been since just after his ten-month birthday (although he will likely be going in tomorrow due to a rash that he's had all over his body for nearly a week, so there's that). I daresay that his length is catching up the weight gain he had from nine to ten months, but I guess we'll see for sure about that at his one-year well-visit!
Wearing: Mostly twelve month. Maybe all twelve month? I honestly don't know. When we don't go anywhere 90% of the time it's hard to care about what he's wearing and whether or not it fits. Ironically, his church clothes (we've been doing in-person church with masks and social distancing since about September) are the ones I pay attention to the most, and I'm pretty certain those are all twelve month. And I definitely known we've thrown more than one pair of nine month pants in the "too small" pile in the past few weeks, plus he ripped open a seam on one of his pairs of nine month pajamas the other night because they were too snug #whoops. So I suppose it's probably safe to say he's in twelve month clothes--and still size three diapers.
Eating: Of all the categories I do, this one is consistently the biggest broken record from month to month (and even from kid to kid). I guess we should consider that a compliment to the food we cook? I'm not kidding when I say this kid can pack away some serious food and we've yet to see him bat an eye about something. Don't get me wrong, he definitely still has his favorites--and he'll let you know that you are serving the wrong thing by trying to hit it off the spoon (which is definitely not tolerated)--but for the most part he will eat anything and everything. Which maybe explains why nursing has been a bit of a pain lately--he honestly probably isn't all that hungry for milk, and between his water cup and his brothers' water bottles that he is constantly getting his hands on he probably isn't all that thirsty either.
Sleep: Well, if eating is the "broken record" category, this one is definitely the wild card category. Admittedly, for Matthew at least, the majority of the months have been more good than bad (which definitely wasn't the case for his brothers), but it still tends to be all over the place. Naps will be solid but he'll be up multiple times at night (although he hasn't nursed at night in weeks if not months--he'll settle back down without a feeding) or he'll sleep through the night but be a pain for naps. Or he'll be really good on all sleep fronts for like a week but then need someone to sleep in the recliner with him for naps and/or bedtime the following week. It's a total crapshoot. Plus I think this is the area that has suffered most from the pandemic--never before have I had a kid that took a longer nap in the morning than the afternoon, but that's always been because we've been going places in the morning. Since we don't go anywhere though, he's developed a habit of long morning naps, which generally means his afternoon nap (the one that overlaps with Connor!) is crap, which also means he's a pill before bedtime. And it's not even like I can try to make a point to get out of the house even for just a walk every morning to get him that morning catnap like his brothers had because the weather is just garbage this time of year. I suppose my next course of action would be to try to get him to cut his morning nap altogether, but again, since we don't go anywhere, I'm usually just as ready as he is for a nap around 9:00 because I need some sort of a break/change of pace. Oh well. We'll get it figured out. Eventually.
New Stuff: We celebrated his first Thanksgiving in the most unglamorous way possible--not only did we end up cancelling our trip to visit Darrell's family, but then I ended up being in bed all day with mastitis. Super fun. Darrell was a superstar, though, and still ended up making the whole Thanksgiving meal that we had planned (with chicken instead of turkey since it was just the six of us), and Matthew loved every bite of it. Fortunately, he made up for the nursing headaches by starting to say "mama", although I'm not entirely convinced he is saying it with intentional meaning, but whatever. And in the world of "least surprising news ever", Matthew has gotten to be incredibly active the past few months. It's like he has big brothers to keep up with or something. He is climbing on to anything and everything, including the stool in Connor's bathroom (which caused a little bit of a close call one morning when he got up there and grabbed my coffee cup that I set down while helping Connor use the potty. Miraculously he managed to spill it all on the floor and not on himself). He loves balls--or really anything that he can throw easily--and will entertain himself throwing things around and chasing after them (and it's an added bonus when he can get someone to sit and play "catch" with him!). He'll also drive cars around to entertain himself, although he has an amazing knack for playing with the car/toy that Connor needs (aka Connor wants whatever toy Matthew currently has). He gets silly excited when we leave the gate open because he loves to throw stuff down the steps (the bigger and louder the better), and since he actually minds the edge pretty well we tend to oblige him when one of us is around to keep at least half an eye on him. And speaking of getting silly excited about things, he LOVES the dishwasher (which, if I'm not mistaken, has been true of at least one, if not more, of his brothers). He knows the sound of it opening, and I swear he has heard it open from downstairs before and immediately climbed upstairs to get to it. Also, I'm not sure if I'm mentioned this before (and maybe I have because I recall the "Meeko" nickname getting brought up before, but maybe that was for one of his brothers), but he really enjoys putting things into--and taking them out of--containers, including but not limited to garbage cans. We're pretty certain we've sent at least one pacifier to the dump, and who knows what else. Fortunately he also enjoys this game with small toys and mixing bowls, so most of the time we're able to redirect him from the garbage can if we catch it in time.
I think that about covers it... He did get his second tooth like I anticipated he would last month, and although we've had moments of thinking he was close to cutting another, there's been no signs of anything yet. Which, given all the other nursing headaches we've had, I suppose is a good thing. I generally have mixed feelings about first birthdays, and I had anticipated dreading this one the most since he's our "baby", but with everything that's been going on in the nursing department it's given me at least one silver lining to look forward to in light of his upcoming birthday. As grateful as I am to have been able to nurse my boys for as long as I did, I think I will definitely be ready to be fully done with that aspect of motherhood.
