Twelve Months Old

Owen has turned a year old, and I can hardly believe that my little baby is no longer my little baby!!! How time seems to pass so quickly when you look back on things. This year has been quite a busy and memorable one! Owen has been such a good baby which has which helped make things a lot easier. We are very blessed to have him in our lives, and he brings us so much joy and makes us more happy than we could have imagined. He is truly a blessing in our lives!

What a difference a year makes:

newborn

6 months

1 year

Owen Facts:

*He weighs 19lbs 14oz (5-10%), and is 29 inches long (10-25%). I was hoping he'd make 20lbs by his first birthday, but he barely missed it! He may not be my baby anymore, but he's still a little peanut! At least his growth has stayed on the same curve since he was born.

*He can walk!! We started to wonder if he would do it before his first birthday, but about 2 1/2 weeks ago he proved to us that he can indeed walk. He gets really excited when he walks, but will only do it if we get him started and encourage him on. Crawling is still his preferred mode of transportation.

*He often comes up to us, grabs our hands, then pulls us along to go for a walk! He loves it. He will also grab at our hands and move them to where he wants them when we're playing with a toy or reading a book. His favorite is to put our hands on his touch-and-feel books so we can feel them.

*His language and communication skills are really developing rapidly. He can say mama and dada discriminately now, and he also says ball ('ba') and book ('bu'). He can understand simple phrases such as "Give me the ____," "Go bye bye?," "Where's the___," "Get your ball," "Close the door" and he reacts accordingly.

*One day he just started clapping his hands. I was getting worried since he still had not ever done it. But now he loves to clap his hands, and when I say "Owen, clap your hands" he immediately starts clapping his hands! It's so fun and cute.

*He is still a bit of a picky eater, but just recently he has gotten better. I just had to figure him out. He will not eat anything that I serve him from a spoon, except for yogurt, which he loves. He'll eat from a fork or spoon as long as he's the one controlling it. But since he's not very good at it I have to put the food on the spoon or fork, hand it to him, and then the food usually ends up in his lap. But he's getting better at getting it to his mouth. He loves finger foods, and does not like anything pureed. He finally warmed up to some meat, and now he loves blueberries. It's been a challenge figuring out what he'll eat, but he's starting to like a larger variety of foods (not just bread and cheese anymore) which makes me a happy person.

*He is completely weaned from breastfeeding and formula. He only drinks cows milk now, and took to it really easily.

*He has discovered light switches and loves to turn them on and off. It's hard to walk by a switch without him reaching over to play with it.

*He's never fallen asleep in a random place, such as in his high chair, on the floor, etc. He'll only go to sleep if he's in someone's arms or in his own bed.

*One of his favorite toys is our computer, keyboard, and mouse. He would play with them all day if we let him.

*He has 8 teeth now- 4 on top and 4 on bottom.

*He's lived in 2 countries, 2 states, and been on 20 airline flights.