13 Months Old!

Well, this little sweet pea of ours turned 13 months old today!  Times just continues to fly and, before I know it, he will be turning two years old!  Emmett just continues to be the happiest, cutest baby around and we just love him to pieces.  He is continuing to learn and grow and do new things all the time which all of us get the biggest kick out of!  Emmett now walks about 50% of the time and it is just the cutest thing.  He really is getting good at walking, but still prefers crawling at certain times of the day.  Besides saying 'mama' and 'dada' and 'uh oh,' he also says 'hi' all the time and also says 'weeee' sometimes when he thinks something is fun or exciting.  He also loves to point at things and people and now waves 'hi' and 'bye' a lot.  Emmett started playing the game of "peekaboo" all on his own when I lay him down in his crib for nap time or bedtime.  He will intentionally pull one of his blankets up over his head, wait a few seconds, and then pull it back down.  Whenever he pulls the blanket back down, I will say "peakaboo" and he just laughs and laughs.  It is so cute!  Emmett is also our baby who loves all things soft and cuddly.  He will crawl up to blankets, pillows, or even my Boppy when it is on the ground and just lay down for a few seconds with his head on one of these items.  He actually started doing this a few months ago, but he now lays his head down on soft blankets whenever I put him into his crib.  It's so sweet.  He has also started to make some connections on his own this past month with both the remote control and the hairbrush that is always on the children's bathroom counter.  Emmett will now pick up any remote control he finds in the family room and point it towards the TV.  He also did this at my parent's house when we were there last.  Whenever he is sitting on the bathroom counter to have his teeth brushed at night, he will pick up the brush and start combing his hair.  Emmett also will sometimes make kissing noises with his mouth when we kiss him and he lifts up his arms in the air (from either a kneeling or standing position) when he wants to be picked up by us.  And much to my chagrin, he has also discovered toilet paper and tissue paper and will happily rip several pieces to shreds if given the time to do so.  

Emmett continues to be an eating machine and seriously eats more food than Ella does by a long shot every day.  He will eat anything that we place on his high chair tray and will eat and eat and eat until one of us takes him out of it.  He continues to nurse three or four times a day, but the middle of the day feedings are super short and his morning and bedtime feedings are normally only 5 to 10 minutes long.  So, he is really starting to wean himself pretty well.  I introduced whole milk to him last month a few days after his birthday and he will drink it sometimes at meals when he is in the mood out of a sippy cup with a soft straw; however, he still really is still not that interested in the whole idea yet.  On a more positive note, I am happy to report that Emmett is back to sleeping like a champ again after a few very rocky nights last month.  I have been charting his sleeping for months now and am so thrilled to report that he has only cried ONE time for 15 to 20 minutes since January 19th.  That is only one time in three weeks!  The rest of the nights, he either sleeps through the night or I just have to get up once or twice a night to put his pacifier back in his mouth.  Last week, he even caught his sisters' cold and was all plugged up for a few nights, but managed to just let me put the pacifier back in every time he woke up instead of needing to be rocked or nursed back to sleep for comfort which was such a huge relief to me.  So, hopefully, we have turned a corner for good on these awful sleep habits that started up in September.  And that is our 13-month-old baby in a nutshell!

Our sweet, baby Emmett holding a "Be Mine," Valentine's Day decoration while sitting in our big chair in the living room.  What a cutie patootie.