13-Month Top Ten

At thirteen months, Collin has a few tricks up his sleeve. Here's his Top Ten Ways he makes my heart melt:

10 - Despite eating from sun-up to sun-down anything and everything we put in front of him, he has slipped to the 22nd percentile for weight (21 pounds). Currently, he loves chicken nuggets, bologna and hot dogs. Ryan says we're raising him on the Adkin's Diet. He's definitely become quite the meat-eater. He also is slightly iron-deficient, and we have to add iron to his baby oatmeal each morning. I don't know what it tastes like, but it smells nasty.

9 - When it's cold (which is always now), I put Collin's hat on before getting in the car. Whenever he has his hat on, he is like a statue. He does move his arms or legs or grasp with his knees when you carry him. He's just a dead-weight. It makes hauling him around quite difficult.

8 - Collin waves bye-bye every time anyone puts on their shoes or coat. He also waves when he's going to his room for a nap or if we are all going to the basement to work-out.

7 - When we go in to get Collin up in the morning or from a nap, he'll be standing at the edge of his crib with his arms up in the air with all his stuffed toys and blanket thrown out on the floor. I always pick up all his things and throw them back in first. Then he gets down, crawls to grab his blankie, then stands at the edge with his blankie in hand and arms raised in the air. Heaven forbid he'd miss a second without that precious blankie.

6 - When I tell him "no" that he can't do something, he crawls a little bit away and looks at me with a sideways glance. Then he heads back over for just a little tap. Of course, I say "no" again, and he moves away. A minute later, when he thinks the coast is clear again, he heads in "faster than a speeding bullet" and barely taps whatever object I've prohibited. Then I get that sideways glance again before I scoop him up and pat his hand saying "no." Yes, I have a little firecracker on my hands.

5 - At about 5:30pm each night, Collin crawls over next to the rocking chair in the living room and, with great effort, gets my boppy. Pushing and struggling, he gets it over on my lap (I'm always sitting on the floor with him watching the news) and crawls up on it. When I ignore him (I don't nurse him for bed until 6:30pm) or push the boppy away, he cries and maneuvers it back into position. Can you tell he's making weaning quite difficult?

4 -If we start singing "If you're happy and you know it..." Collin starts clapping his hands. On cue almost every single time. He also claps his hands when he's all done eating, all done sitting in the pack 'n play while I workout, and all done being in his carseat while running errands. I love watching his little hands and the big grin on his face each time he does it.

3 - If Collin drops something (usually on purpose), he looks down after it and says "Uh-uh." I don't think it could be a more expressionless grunt. If you drop something (always on accident), he also says, "Uh-uh" with little or no expression. Try saying "uh-oh" without expression sometime.; it just doesn't have the same effect. Everytime he does it, I just have to laugh.

2 - When Collin goes to play with his Fisher Price farm animals and barn, he says, "Mmmmm." If you aske him, "What does a cow say?" He'll say, "Mmmmm," and open the door on the barn that says "moooo."

And the Number One reason Collin makes my heart melt...

1 - When we went out for our anniversary over Christmas Break, my mom was feeding Collin in his high chair when we were leaving. I saw on Super Nanny that it was better to say goodbye and make a show of leaving rather than to try to sneak out, so we've waved bye, gave him kisses, and told him we'd be back in a couple hours. Grandma finished feeding him and got him down from the chair, and he immediately went to play with the nativity set and toys by the front door. After a while, she picked him up and carried him into the living room to play with his own toys. A few minutes later, he crawled back to the front door and played right in front of it. She carefully picked him up and started a new game with him in the living room. This time he crawled quickly to the front door, pulled himself to standing, and leaning against the door, pounded with the other hand saying, "MaamaaMaamaaMaamaa." Doesn't that make your little heart cry? (or maybe just mine...)

And there are some highlights from my 13-month old's life.