Our Little One Year Old

William is one years old today!! I was going to write a blog before and catch you up on all of his exploits before this, but since I didn't get around to it, I will do so now. We are having a little party for him on Friday so I'll post pictures of cake and stuff then. Since he is now 12 months old, I will tell 12 things about him, and put some random cute pictures intermittently.

1-As you see in some of the pictures, William likes to stick his tongue out ALL THE TIME! He started doing this when he was getting in his bottom two teeth and hasn't stopped. My favorite thing is when he does this little babbly language of his with his tongue out the whole time.

2-For some reason William is mystically drawn to the hymnbook. We have a bookcase in our living area and William can pull himself up and get anything on the bottom two shelves. For some reason, no matter where it is, he will always go straight for the hymnbook every time. He loves to pull it off the shelf and then sit down and look through it. (Below-Aren't his crossed feet the cutest things? He does this a lot)



3-William really loves dancing to music. One of his favorite things is when we turn on something upbeat and we have a dance party. He loves being twirled around in circles, and laughs and laughs and laughs when we dance with him. He especially loves it when his daddy dances with him.

4-Lately William has been wanting his dad a lot. It used to be that he always just wanted me, but then a couple of weeks ago Chris went on a 3 day fishing trip and when he got back William practically jumped out of my arms into his. Ever since then I can tell that he misses his daddy when Chris is gone all day. He absolutely loves the evening time when they chase each other (crawling, of course) all around the apartment laughing hysterically.

5-William still doesn't regularly sleep through the night, although he has gotten much better lately at letting me just put him in his crib and going to sleep by himself. He is also getting better at going to sleep again quickly after he wakes up at night. Maybe someday he will actually stop waking up, but I'm taking what I can get right now. :)



6-William likes to talk in this little language of his that is very cute and funny. (If you want a vague idea of what it's like -stick your tongue out of your mouth and say "giggle" over and over while varying the intonation and inflection.) Sometime he will randomly hold his arm high up in the air and stare up at his hand while he talks very quickly and dramatically. It's hilarious to see.

7-William loves to watch the "signing time" movies. I don't like to let him watch movies very often, and he really isn't interested in watching most movies, but he really likes signing time, and it's nice to be able to let him watch them every once in a while so I can clean something up without him making another mess. He still doesn't really sign himself though, even though we've been doing signs for months. Every once in a while one will slip out, but not very often. I'm sure he'll do it eventually though.

8-William always wants to feed himself. Lately he has only been letting me feed him a few bites and then will refuse to eat anymore until I let him do it himself. The problem is that he really hasn't mastered the art of using his spoon yet, so he will try that for a while and then resort to digging his hands into it and trying to lick out of his bowl. I don't really mind cleaning up the mess most of the time, but sometimes it's pretty disastrous. IN the picture below he figured how to dump his bowl on the top of his head. It was incredibly funny when he did it, and then even funnier because the rice just stayed there.



9-Lot's of times when William wakes up in the morning we will just lie in my bed for a while and I will nurse him, and then I will try to catch a little more sleep while he plays (wishful thinking, I know!). It's funny though, because lots of times he will play for a minute and then lay his head down on my pillow with me, then bounce up and play, then lay his head on my stomach, then bounce up again and then lie on Chris's pillow, over and over. It's actually really cute to see, and I love it when he comes and just lies down right next to me. Granted, he often smacks his head on mine when he is trying this, but it's worth it for the snuggle time.

10-On Sunday we learned that William is able to crawl up stairs very easily. I had been asked to play the organ so we were sitting on the stand. Chris had taken William out for a minute, and then come back and sat on the front row. He put William down and he crawled straight for the stairs to the stand and went straight up them and back to me. It was pretty cute. It was funny because before he could crawl he couldn't get around at all-he never even rolled onto his tummy. But as soon as he decided to crawl (10 months) he suddenly could do anything he wanted and get anywhere and walk along furniture and everything, so I really shouldn't have been surprised when he did this too.

11-William is pretty much in constant motion. It is pretty much impossible to get him to sit still long enough to clip his fingernail. He always tries to grab the clippers, and hates having his hand held still. We've even tried to do it while he is asleep, but even then he will jerk his hand away. It has also become quite the ordeal to change his diaper and he continually tries to crawl away while you are doing it. Even when he sleeps it's as if he is just hovering there waiting to get up and play. I can go into his room when he is sleeping and say "William" very very softly, and he will shoot straight up on his hands and knees, look at me, then stand up and reach for me to get him out to go play. It's pretty amazing.

12-We have this little bike toy (this isn't ours, but it's one like this)

and the last couple of days William has spent tons of time, energy and attention trying to get up on it. He loves it when we push him around the house on it and it's just been really cute to see him focus so much on trying to get on it himself. He has come really close, but can't quite get up far enough. It's funny when you say that little kids don't have very long attention spans because he spent at least 10 minutes completely focused on it the other night.

So there it is-a very long update on William. It is so amazing to me that he is one years old. In some ways it seems like he can't have grown up that fast, and in some ways it seems as if he has been with us forever. He brings us so much joy! I never knew how much you could love until I got married and then having William just added so much more. He lights up our lives every day!