Making progress (13 month update)

Anthony at 13 months This post may be boring to some, but I'm writing this mostly for my own benefit. I'm afraid I might forget these things if I don't write them down somewhere, so the blog it is. If you don't want to read it at least scroll to the end for some cute pictures.

EATING

Anthony is getting better and better every day at the whole eating thing. His really likes nutrigrain bars which are surprisingly healthy, they even have fiber and real fruit filling (so they say). Sadly he gets about 2-3 bars a day, cause it's a sure bet he'll eat it and sometimes (most-times) I take the easy route. Fruit and yogurt are pretty safe bets too.
PB&J's, Noodles, and mac and cheese are iffy still, but occasionally he'll eat them, just depends on his mood. Gold fish and crackers are immediately thrown on the floor for Brewster who is always hanging out by the high chair at meal time eagerly waiting to catch any dropped/thrown food.
He is also starting to let me mix his bottles half and half with milk and formula. Every once in a while he will drink straight milk, but most times I still have to mix it, and it still has to be in a bottle. He refuses to drink milk out of a sippy cup. However he will drink juice just fine out of a sippy cup.
His all time favorite food is ice cream. He will never refuse it and if he sees you eating it he will ask for it by smacking his lips at you. Tonight we went to a Notre Dame basketball game with Anthony and he was on my lap looking at the people behind me. Pretty soon he started trying to climb over my shoulder to get to them. I turned around to see what was causing him to want to go to a stranger. Turns out these guys were eating ice cream. Anthony was trying so hard to get to them, then he started smacking his lips and spit the pacifier out. He was making such a scene, everyone was laughing. The guy started to feel bad, he even said he wished he had another spoon so he could share. Finally Anthony started crying he wanted it so bad, so we had to send Grandpa to the concession stand to buy him his own, and then he was happy again.

PLAYING

Anthony plays so well these days. He is getting smarter with the toys and knows what to do with them. It's fun to watch him figure stuff out. He is also a lot better at playing by himself, which is really nice for us. Not that we don't like playing with him, but it's nice to see him entertaining himself once in a while.

SLEEPING

Still not sleeping through the night every night. Usually about 50% of the time he wakes up around 4am for a bottle. The rest of the time he sleeps right through till morning. Bedtime is usually around 8pm and his wake up time is anywhere from 7:30-9am depending on my luck.

NAPPING

He still takes 2 naps a day most days, but I think he is getting closer to just needing/wanting 1 nap a day. Mommy and Daddy still desperately want him taking 2 naps a day, but usually it just ends up making bedtime more difficult if he gets that second nap. So now days we usually only give him the second nap if the first one was really short or if we plan on keeping him up later that night.

WALKING

Not happening yet, but we're not worried. He walks holding on to stuff, and can climb on the furniture without much difficulty. He is just starting to let go while standing to see if he will fall or not. He usually quickly sits down shortly after letting go, but this testing out his balance is new, and a sign of progress I'm sure.

TALKING

He has been saying ma-ma-ma-ma-ma and da-da-da-da-da for a while now, but I think he is finally starting to use them in the correct context. This morning when he woke up I went in his room and he said "ma-ma". It made my day, he is just so sweet. We think he is also saying ball, but it sounds more like "ba". He says it when he's playing with balls so we just asume that's what he is trying to say.

And now for a few pictures...

Here he is walking around with the cleaning ladys bucket on wheels.

He loves Brewster, unfortunately the feeling isn't mutual and usually Brewster runs away from him. Which is probably just as well. Little dogs don't have the best track record with little kids.

Here he is playing with his new play tent we got him for his birthday. He really loves it, and even though I thought it was a little pricey when we got it, it's turning out to be worth every dollar, cause he plays with it every day.

Oh and one more thing, he has 6 teeth, 4 on top and 2 on the bottom.