Twelve Months! Caiden Turns One Year Old!!!!!

On April 10, 2012 my sweet little baby boy officially left the baby stage of his life and became a toddler! While I'm happy that my baby boy is growing it also makes me sad. I know everyone (including me) says this but WOW, the time has really flown by! I can't believe that he's already one! I can't believe that he's almost walking! I can't believe that he no longer eats baby food but will eat whatever we're having! Of course I've watched all these changes happening right before my eyes but when I look back on the day of his birth it seems like it was a couple months ago.

My sweet little boy continues to be sweet but with an edge. He is sneaky and gets into things he knows he shouldn't, like unrolling all the toilet paper, or going into Mommy's drawers and pulling things out and throwing them on the floor... Or ripping all the wipes out of the pack and gleefully laughing while he does it, or waiting for Ayla to be otherwise occupied and play with something that she treasures and always yells at him to leave alone, or crawl under the end table trying to get to the speaker cords and get stuck. These are just a few of the things that he now does or tries to do on a regular basis. He also seems to be getting a little defiant. The other day Ayla was playing with him and he reached over grabbed one of her curls and yanked it as hard as he could. I said "Caiden, No, No!" He stared at me, reached his hand out, grabbed another curl and pulled it! The little stinker. He seems so young to be defiant. I remember Ayla being defiant but I think she was older when it started. It's funny how it works out. It seems that Ayla has finally grown up to the point where most of the time I can trust her to be obediant. She's been pretty good lately and usually listens to me and she's no longer constantly gets into everything. BUT here comes Caiden. Full force right into the stage where he investigates, rips, takes apart, gets into, rummages through and sometimes destroys EVERYTHING he can reach!  At the same time it really is fun watching him learn and grow. He is very curious and wants to investigate everything. He tries to figure out how everything works. I have an old remote from an old tv set that I took the batteries out of and gave to him hoping he would leave ours alone. For a couple days he played with it constantly, he would press buttons on it and then watch the tv waiting for something to happen. It seems like after a couple of days he figured out it wasn't the real deal and he's back to trying to reach for the real remote. He has been cruising around furniture for a couple of months now. Just this week he has been letting go and taking one or at the most two steps to reach something. I walked all the way down our driveway with him only holding him by one arm this week and he did pretty good. I think it will be any day that he decides he's going to walk.  He says "Hi" that's probably his clearest word that everybody can understand. He also says "DaEE" for Daddy, and Aya for Ayla. He hardly ever calls me unless I'm ignoring him and then he'll say Mamama. It's never Mama or Ma it's always Mamama. Usually the only time I hear this is when he is awake in his crib and I haven't gotten in there to retrieve him fast enough. He'll start yelling "Mamama!"  He waves, gives high-fives, claps his hands, and gives kisses. He makes a noise like "Mwah" when he gives kisses, guess I must do that.  Sometimes he'll even spontaneously bend down and kiss my cheek when I'm holding him. I gotta say those are some of the sweetest kisses I've ever had, they just melt my heart. He's not much of a cuddler, but occasionally when he's in the mood for it he's really cuddly. This is usually when his teeth are really hurting him and right after he wakes up. He remains to be a really good eater. I have yet to find something he won't eat. I have him drinking from  sippy cup almost exclusively but lately he hasn't wanted to drink. I think it's because his teeth are coming in, FIVE at once (four across the top, one molar on the bottom). It really worries me at times because he will only drink a few ounces a day. I started buying watermelon and feeding it to him because there's so much liquid in it. I'm trying to make sure he stays hydrated. I switched him over to whole milk and when the formula ran out I didn't buy anymore. So he's been drinking whole milk exclusively for over a week now. No issues with it as far as allergies go like there were with Ayla, so that's a good thing. But he doesn't seem to like it very much. I'm not too sure what to do about that. I've been working on his nap schedule trying to wean him down to one long nap a day instead of two short ones. Usually if we leave pretty early in the morning and go to  play date, or grocery shopping, or the park, or something he'll be fine. He's entertained by everything going on around him and he'll be happy and awake and then he'll take a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon. If we don't go anywhere though, I find that he usually gets pretty grumpy by about 10:00 am and starts whining, sometimes he even crawls into his room, reaches up and pulls his blankie out through the bars of his crib, crawls back out to wherever I am, and lays down on his blankie by me. On these days I usually end up still giving him a morning nap. I figure it's a gradual thing, he just turned one so he'll start sleeping less and less as he gets older.

He remains to be a little bit little. Only measuring in at 20% on both height (28 3/4 inches) and weight (20 lbs. 12 ounces). I'm not worried by this. He actually made some significant jumps in the height department. He grew almost three inches in three months and went from 3% to 20%. He wears size 12 month clothes and size 4 diapers. He could still wear size 3 diapers but I find that the 4's seem to last through the night a little better on him.

I am so happy to have my sweet little baby boy in my life. He brings me  and our family so much joy! He has such a happy, charming little personality and is quick to smile at people when they smile at him. He is very loving and is quick to show affection to me, Daddy and Ayla. He LOVES his sister and thinks she is so cool he follows her around and always wants to be by her. He even crawls into her bed sometimes when they're playing in their room. I can't believe you're one my little chunky monkey! I LOVE you so much!

I had a whole photo session with Caiden on his birthday. I took him out in the yard to a few locations around our house and took his pictures. Here's the best of what I got. As usual I took a lot!

 Pointing is his latest thing. As you can see from the next few pictures he does it all the time!

 I LOVE this picture! His expression reminds me of a kid who's been caught doing something but wants to appear innocent.

 Of course Ayla had to get in on the photo shoot.

 I love how the sun shines on the bushes in the background of these next few pictures.

 Being a good big sister and pulling the leaf out of his hand before he can stick it in his mouth again.