I decided to break Ethan's development recap into one month rather than two this time since he's met so many milestones/had so many firsts over the past few weeks.
-We started off with his first stomach bug after his first birthday party :( He was quite a trooper through it all. He was hesitant to eat for a few days afterward. He only nursed and ate apple sauce for about two days. My poor baby.
-He started a phase where he loves to push buttons (including mine). If a toy has a button to push, he finds it, although his favorite buttons are on the DVD player.
{This is the Little People School Bus. Thanks Emily, John, and Brynne! He loves to push the driver's head and make the bus honk or sing.}
-We witnessed his first attempted to feed himself with a spoon. We're continuing to work on this skill.
-He learned the twinkling hand motions for "Twinke, Twinkle Little Star". He does it when you ask him to get his twinklers out.
-Ethan started stacking blocks
-He experienced more snow! 22 inches on Feb 6th and about 12 more inches on Feb 10th.
We have a great video of him laughing at Matt throwing snowballs at the storm door. I need to figure out how to upload videos to a post or upload it to our youtube page soon!
-He went bowling for the first time at his cousin Scotty's 4th birthday party
{See our ball way down there next to the gutter?}
-He went through a stage where he wanted to use his pacifier more during the day and I think it was prompted by teething. We try to limit pacifier use to naptime and bedtime.
-Speaking of teething, his Upper Left Cuspid, Upper Right Cuspid, Lower Left First Molar, and Lower Right First Molar broke through... All in a 4 week time span. The Cuspids tips have broken through but they haven't come in completely yet. It seems those are taking forever compared to his other teeth.
-His language development is progressing. He continues to say "a dat?" and point when he is inquiring about everything. He says "is dis?" too. For a few days his favorite phrase was "O Gawh" which sounded like "Oh God". At nearly 13 months Ethan said his first unprompted, very clear word which was "Bubble". We were reading
this book before bed. We got to the page that says "Where are Baby's hands?" and under the flap it says "Under the bubbles". Before I could even say it, he took his pacifier out of his mouth and said, in the sweetest voice, "bubble". He is also showing word association as he said bubble when I had a bottle of bubbles out to blow for him. Most recently he has been saying "bapple" for apple, one of his favorite foods. He has started to sound like a monkey when he says "eh, eh, eh". He says this when he wants something but can't communicate what it is.
-Ethan's new foods this month were black beans and turkey lunch meat. Both are also current favorite foods. We attempted chicken breast, ground turkey, and ground chicken but he didn't care for the textures. As soon as we put them in his mouth he spit them back out. While grocery shopping one day I asked the deli counter if they had any dairy and soy free lunch meat. They suggested "Just Turkey", no butter injected, no added flavoring, no preservatives. I worry about cross contamination but so far Ethan doesn't seem to be showing any reactions and he absolutely loves it. He ate an entire slice as we finished our grocery shopping and continued to sign for more. Also on the food front... I have been able to introduce decaf coffee with coconut milk into my diet. What a treat! Unfortunately, Ethan showed a reaction to rice. We attempted giving him bananas and rice. Although he enjoyed eating it, he had black bowel movements afterward. Ethan's pediatrician stated that it was not a good sign and for both of us to stop consuming rice.
He loved the tastes of the homemade marshmallow he had for his Valentine photos.
-He also started making a cute, scrunchie nose face when he smiles. I love it.
He started sharing his food with us too. I can't tell you how many slightly soggy Kix I've eaten from his hands.
-He crawled backwards for the first time and started crawling on his hands and knees much more often. Now, at the end of the month he has almost completely given up his army crawl. Once he realized that he can crawl just as fast on his hands and knees he stopped moving to his army crawl. I miss it.
-He learned to cruise around the furniture very quickly and has gained enough balance to stand on his own for a few seconds
-He was given a ride on/walker toy as a first birthday gift from friends. It's an ice cream truck and has treats under the seat. He loves to hide just about anything that will fit in there. He started walking on his knees while pushing it and is up to his feet now. After he became more comfortable walking with this toy he allowed us to hold his hands to help him walk. Previously he wanted nothing to do with that. If we attempted holding his hands and encouraging him to walk, he would plant his feet or sit down in refusal. He knows what he wants and doesn't want and is not afraid to voice it.
{The serious, determined look on his face makes me smile.}
-Unfortunately he started having more aggressive tantrums. He started hitting me, toys, and friends out of frustration, curiosity, and anger. This has been a challenge because of his age. He isn't quite old enough for the discipline methods we had in mind for dealing with behaviors like these (think timeout). At first we tried holding his hand and saying "We don't hit." or "No hitting." in a calm but stern voice. That only seemed to encourage the behavior. He would hit again and more forcefully. If we continued to address the behavior that way it lead to a full-on tantrum with arms, legs, and head flailing. At that point I put him down and the tantrum intensified. I sat on the floor next to him. Once he calmed down and wasn't aggressive, I picked him back up. We took opportunities when his hands were near our faces to say "Nice" and show him soft touches. That worked for a while. Anytime I said "Nice", he stroked my cheeks instead of hitting me. We decided to try to ignore the hitting. This tactic seemed to work much better. His hitting has decreased tremendously. Sadly, he still hit a friend several times last week (so sorry Jackson!). I can't ignore that so I took Ethan away from playing and encouraged him to play nicely when we returned (BTW, Kim, I really liked how you said "Welcome back Ethan" each time. That is a great positive tool). We had a play date yesterday with Reagan and he did not hit her once. He patted her head when he was trying to move around a toy and she was blocking his way. Either it was a good day or he knows not to hit girls :) Either way, I'll take it!
I didn't anticipate having to deal with these behaviors this early. At his one year appointment his pediatrician stated "Children like Ethan grow up to be wonderful, productive, successful adults ... but they're difficult to raise.". I wasn't really surprised by her observation because I know he can be a challenge. A wonderful challenge but still, a challenge. He is determined. That determination can be difficult to handle but at the same time it gives me so much pride and hope for him. If he had a different personality then we could have had even more problems during his infancy. I believe that he survived so well through all of the digestive issues and allergies because he is a fighter.
{First facial bruise as a result of his tantrums. He threw his face to the floor three times during two separate tantrums. Natural consequence?}
