1 Year Old

Raleigh turned one year old today!  What a great year, and a great birthday to end the great year!

We started the day by giving Raleigh a bath.  Taking a bath is one of Raleigh's favorite things to do.  Sometimes he whines when we take him into the bathroom because he wants to get in the bathtub.  So, Raleigh usually likes to throw his toys out of the bathtub (of course), but today's game was to throw them into the water and say "splash."  :)

Then we went to the doctor.  Raleigh likes going to the doctor - there are big toys, a roll of tissue paper covering the exam table, and a window to look out of.  Maybe he gets sick so often so we will take him to the doctor.  So, going to the doctor seemed like great fun until the nurse walked in with a tray of shots.  A serious look came over Raleigh's face.  He looked from the tray to the nurse several times.  His charm didn't work on her, like it does on mom and dad.  Raleigh got all four, was not very happy, then signed "milk."  He earned it.

Here are the stats for our one-year-old:
Weight: 21 lb, 15 oz (37th percentile)
Height: 30.75" (80th percentile)
Head:   19.50" (99th percentile)

Raleigh was up to 23 lbs a few weeks ago, but he lost his appetite when he had "hand foot and mouth" virus, and he still may be making up for it.  The doctor said to just bring him in to weigh him in a month to make sure he gained it back.

The plan was to go to the zoo today, but Raleigh was a little wimpy the rest of the morning, so we just stayed in and babied  him until he took his nap.  We took him to daycare for a few hours in the afternoon because we figured he'd rather play with his friends than play alone in his room while mom made his birthday Rice Krispie treat and dinner.

Mom, Dad and Raleigh had Raleigh's birthday party when we got home.  Raleigh seemed to like his "cake" and birthday spaghetti. 

Raleigh's birthday "cake" was a Rice Krispie treat because we learned Raleigh is allergic to eggs.  Like milk allergies, egg allergies are very common and most kids grow out of them.  We second-guessed the milk allergy because both times Raleigh had allergic reactions he was exposed to milk and eggs.  So, we put a tiny drop of egg on him last weekend (we feel bad that we did this, but the doctor wasn't horrified when we told her), and within 5 or 10 minutes he broke out in hives.  We don't know when Raleigh was first exposed to egg, causing the reaction in February, but we are glad we figured this out before we fed him a birthday cake with egg in it.  That would have been a sad end to a great year.  Raleigh didn't have a reation to the butter in the Rice Krispie treat - neither when his mom smeared it on his leg to see if it would cause a reaction nor when she fed it to him.  :)  Maybe we will try milk soon so we can switch from formula to whole milk!

In terms of schedule, Raleigh breastfeeds when he wakes up, has three meals and two 4-oz bottles of formula at daycare, and breastfeeds again before bed. He takes one or two naps / day, usually around 11am and 3 or 4pm.

In Raleigh's 12th month, his vocabulary expanded considerably.  He seems to try to mimic most of the words we say.  He is very good at "bye-bye".  If we are playing in his room and the baby gate isn't closed, Raleigh will crawl to the door, stand up, turn to us and say (and wave) "bye-bye", cross the threshold, turn to us and say "bye-bye" again, take a few more steps holding onto the gate, then plop down and crawl off.  That might be his favorite new game.

Raleigh's other words include: look (while pointing), this/that (also while pointing), book, baby, "ba" (which seems to mean bird, ball or balloon --  balloon is sometimes ba-ew), bapum (bottle), apum (apple or fruit), nana (means milk - he's been doing that one for a few months), eye (which is very clearly eye because he says it while he stabs us in the eye with his finger), dog and duck (he identifies these in his books).  He has said other things, but we think he is just mimicing us when he says them.  He says "ra ra" sometimes, so we're trying to associate that with him.

Raleigh can also follow simple instructions.  He claps his hands and blows kisses if we ask him.

When Raleigh was at home with dad during his bout with hand foot and mouth, dad was massaging Raleigh's tear ducts and felt the one in the right eye pop.  Since then, that eye has been perfectly clear.  We hope the left eye pops soon, so we can avoid the surgery / anesthesia.

The last major accomplishment this month was an improvement in getting him to fall asleep.  Raleigh was never a champion sleeper or napper.  He used to seem asleep, then as soon as we'd walk away from his crib or open the baby gate, he would whine.   Now we just set him in his bed, and he'll lull himself to sleep, and we can leave while he's still trying to fall asleep.  We think the ladies at daycare taught him this.  Raleigh was consistently sleeping through the night (8 or 9 pm until 7 am) when he was 100% healthy.  Right now Raleigh is waking up pretty consistently at 4am - even when he sleeps through the night, we hear him toss and turn around then - sometimes even talk!

Every month, we'd sit down to write the monthly blog post, thinking nothing new happened.  Then we'd re-read the last post and rattle off a dozen new things Raleigh can do.  Now we look back a to a year ago, and think of how wonderful (and scary) the first day was.  Even feeding him was challenging, and now Raleigh can communicate to us when he wants milk.  We have come a long way.  Everyone said it would fly by--and it certainly did--but every month has gotten better and better.  We cannot wait to see everything Raleigh has in store for us this next year! :)