Dear Ari,
You are already 13 months old! I can't believe it! I feel really bad that I haven't updated more on the blog about your first year. I guess you and Mia keep me super busy! Hopefully I can remember all of the important stuff right now.
You are so cute and cuddly! You are also a momma's girl and seem to be most content when I slow down and just hold you close. You're warming up to Daddy and even get super excited when he comes home from work everyday, but in the end, you always want to get back in my arms. You even do your excited dance when he walks in the door. You sit up, on the floor, and kind of bounce yourself up and down while reaching your arms up and signing milk at the same time. You always sign "Milk" to say that you want whatever it is you see. For some reason, you think the sign for milk means "I want that". Your little dance is super cute and you do it for all different things.
It seems like you are scared to take risks. You crawled on Christmas day (at about 9 months of age), but it wasn't until just this week that you actually started walking more than 2 steps at a time. You were definitely able to walk sooner, but you waited until your Birthday to take your first step. You would squat and stand back up and squat again, while lifting something up and keep your balance perfectly. However, you never wanted to let go of the couch or hand or table to take a step away. Then for a while, you would take 2 steps and then get back down and crawl to wherever you were headed. Now you are walking though and you are even starting to climb up stairs and onto boxes. I don't think Mia climbed quite this early, so I'm going to have to keep a good watch on you!
You are starting to figure out Lexi. It took you a long time to even notice that she was around and even after that, you always kind of pushed her away. Now you are able to get her attention though and like playing tug of war with her. You definitely have had a lot of loud laughs while playing with her.
Mia is your hero. You adore her. Whenever we try to take pictures of you, it works best to have Mia try to get you to smile. That's when they are the biggest! You love it when she gives you attention, whether it's feeding you, helping to change your diaper or playing with you. You guys have loved playing in the cupboards at the apartment. You each take turns climbing into the cupboard, while the other opens and closes the door to play peek-a-boo. I love hearing you guys laugh every time! Although Mia doesn't always let you, you want to be part of everything she is doing. You got to color with her for the first time the other day and you were so excited just to touch the crayon box! You just kept reaching in to take one out and dropping it and doing it again and again while squealing with excitement. You even were able to color on the page a little bit until you decided the crayon looked yummy and put it in your mouth. That wasn't very cool. You had blue teeth and a blue tongue and chin. And of course you didn't like it when I took the crayon away and cleaned it all up. :)
Although you love playing with Mia, you definitely get jealous and fight for our attention when she's around. A few weeks ago, you were sitting in Daddy's lap and decided to crawl away to play with something. As soon as you turned around and saw that Mia was walking towards Daddy, you quickly crawled back into his lap before she could get there. You even did your super speed crawl. It was pretty funny.
You don't talk much yet. You have said a few things though. We heard you say lala a few months ago when you were looking at Lexi. A few weeks later, we asked you to say Lexi and you said La-gee. We keep trying to get you to say it again and you just smile at us. We've heard you say dog (without the g sound), while signing dog a few times too. When you first see Mia in the mornings, you get really excited and repeatedly yell YaYa! YaYa! YaYa! while doing your cute little excited dance. It's so fun seeing your face light up when you see her coming! You used to say Mamamamamama with your tongue sticking out, like you were salivating or something every time you saw me coming. Now you say Mama. You also say Dada. You don't say it anymore, but there was a while that you kept saying Bah! You would say it about everything, whether you were happy or mad! I miss it. It was pretty cute. We keep working on baby signs. You can sign milk, but you seem to think it means "I want it." You also sign "All Done" by waving your hands around in all directions. "More" was a sign you just recently started doing. I think you know the sign for "Dog" too.
You love to clap. Whether you realize a song just ended (Mia always claps at the end of songs) or if you look up and realize that someone was watching you play, you always sit up taller and clap and smile. Randomly you will let out squeals of delight as you play too. We got you and Mia sheer scarves for Valentine's Day and you love it when I pull them out. You try to grab all of them at once and just sit there with them all in your lap. You love it when I put on the music, like they use at toddler group and the library, so you can wave your scarves around with it.
We're still struggling to get you to sleep through the night. Most nights you have to cry to go to sleep. Occasionally though, you will sing yourself to sleep and those nights are our favorite. You always wake up right when we are trying to go to bed and need to nurse some more. Luckily, you only nurse for a few minutes and go right back to bed, but we still can't figure out what it is that makes you get up. Whenever you wake up, you have a tight grip on your monkey. You don't even realize that you're holding it, but if we try to take it out of your hand, you get super upset. It's always exciting to wake up in the morning to see what your awesome bed head looks like. You get that from your Dad and it's different everyday!
You love food! As long as it's not something new, you almost always want to eat it. When it is new, you always pull a sour face, even if it's a dessert and we have to wait forever to get you to try eating it again. Lately, since you have more teeth now, I've started giving you apple slices and carrots to naw on and you love it. I guess you've watched Mia eat those for long enough now, that you realize you were getting left out. You always get excited when you see those two things coming. I think it makes you feel like a big girl!
Unfortunately, you are a tantrum thrower. It doesn't matter how small or big of a thing it is, you always throw big tantrums. You almost always fall backwards and throw your head on the ground behind you. Of course, that hurts and makes you even more mad. Hopefully we can figure out how to help you stop doing that because it sure looks like it hurts a lot!
I think that's all I can think of to say about you right now. I love that you like to cuddle and hope that you continue to do that for a while. I also love it when your eyes smile! I know when you are truly happy because your eyes smile with your mouth. I love that you joined our family and can't imagine not having you with us!
I love you lots, Ari!
XOXO,
Mommy
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