One Year

Well it happened. My teeny tiny little baby turned one year old.

Confession: His 12 month photo was taken at 14 months. That's called real life people. 

Where did the year go? Brooks has gone from being a 5 pound teeny man who we couldn't get to stay awake during the day to save our lives to a vivacious, loud, sweet, 20 pound into everything little man. 

At 12 months Brooks is a lot of fun. He continues to grow like a weed and it seems crazy that we ever had weight issues with him. He jumped from the 5th percentile in weight at 9 months to the 24th percentile at 12 months. With that, he eats like a truck. It's shocking really how much he can eat. He is not too picky, but he does have his moments. I think it's funny to note that he won't eat bananas, won't touch them. I definitely succeeded in scarring him for life with the 5 month banana incident mentioned here. Oops. Poor first child. 

This month Brooks really mastered pulling up to stand. He is learning to cruise the furniture and loves the independence. He will say Dada here and there but hasn't committed to it being a word officially in his vocab yet. He has started crawling on his knees, which before he was committed to the army crawl. He could army crawl like nobody's business but once he discovered he could double his speed on his knees, it was all over. 

For his birthday we were in Arizona visiting Dan's family. It was in the visiting room of the hospital so Dan's Dad could attend. His dad ordered this gigantic birthday banner and his Mom ordered the most perfect bear cake so it was the perfect party for our Brooksy Bear. We even had a cute little smash cake and we were all prepared to be overwhelmed with cuteness. Yeah, that didn't happen. Brooks swiped some icing with his fingers a few times then proceeded to scream his little baby head off. Turns out he isn't a smash cake type of baby....OH well. 

In this day and age of pinterest parties and going over the top for everything, I have to say I was so thankful for Brooks' little waiting room party. It really put what matters most into perspective and that is being surrounded by the people you love. Family is everything. Brooks is such a loved baby, and that turned into the theme of his party. I am so grateful for family who dotes on my little man.

A couple of weeks later I went home to SC and we had a little party with my family. Brooks stuck to his guns and screamed when we sang. Once everyone was distracted by other things and weren't staring at him though he did sneak a few bites of cake. 

We made it a year. We have a year old son. He's is definitely losing that infant look and starting to look like a toddler.

11 Months

At 11 months Brooks continues to be a very happy and curious baby. He is very observant and still loves the challenge of getting every stranger he encounters to give him a smile. We were out to eat one day and our waiter was not the friendliest we've ever had. This might have been Brooks' first fail at getting a smile, but it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying. He spent our entire lunch staring down our waiter giving him his best smiles and silly faces. That grump just doesn't know what he's missing.

This month was exciting because Brooks started saying his first two words! The first was Baba, for his bottle. My child would learn a food word first. Next came....Mama! I must admit I was thrilled. He was just babbling at first but he officially knows I'm Mama now. He will crawl to my feet and start yelling Mamamamama....this can be translated to Mama pick me up!

Brooks has really taken off crawling as well. He is all over the apartment so child proofing is in full effect. We play a little game of going in the bedroom or bathroom and calling his name until he comes and finds us. He thinks it's a blast.

This month Brooks also got his two top teeth! Poor guy had a bit of a hard time with these teeth but they finally cut through!

One of Brooks' favorite games to play is when one of us holds him, and the other hides behind the one holding him and pops up randomly side to side. He laughs SO hard and moves his head back and forth looking for us.

One other fun thing he does is attacks my phone when I have it on speaker phone. He is so used to doing face time, that now whenever he hears someone's voice come through it, he frantically searches for them on the phone's screen. It's pretty cute.

I cannot believe my baby will be one year old in just one short month!