Here's is a snapshot of Asa's milestones and daily life at 14 months old. :)
- waking sometime in the 7 o'clock hour. Yes, he used to sleep til 8 or 8:30. BUT, that was before he started sleeping through the night. Yes, you read that right! Asa is now, finally, at 14 months old, SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT! Some days (and nights) I thought this would never happen. It is a glorious development for us all. :)
- He nurses upon waking, then we come downstairs to make a good morning call to G-Ma and play. About about an hour after waking/nursing, we have breakfast. Asa's favorites are pancakes, pancake puffs, waffles, muffins (blueberry muffins and cinnamon muffins), and sometimes scrambled eggs & toast.
- After he eats breakfast, we get to play some more! This often involves cars, trains, LOTS of books, a musical toy or two, and now that I took the time to learn how to lock my cell phone's keypad, he LOVES to play with my phone--carrying it everywhere, pretending to talk on it, pressing buttons galore. We say hi to Sammy over the gate a couple times in here, too.
- Asa usually naps around 10 or 10:30. If we have a special event, or on Sundays because of church, he might miss this nap. He is not yet at the point where he can drop his morning nap completely without it backfiring into only a very short afternoon nap. So, two naps it is until further notice.
- Asa no longer nurses before his morning nap. We read 1 or 2 stories, read a Bible story, pray, and then I rock him while I sing 1 song before he goes in his crib. We like to cuddle with Mr. Owl during this time, too. He usually talks to himself for 15-30 minutes in bed and usually his morning nap is 1 hour long. (then you have days like today where chattering to himself a verrrrry long time at night several nights in a row catches up and Mommy has to wake him up at 1 after he went down at 10:30!!).
- After a morning nap, Asa nurses, we make sure we're both dressed, the bed is made, house tidying things like that. About an hour later we have lunch! Asa's favorite lunch right now is a veggie nugget. He loves them so much he does not want to swallow one bite before taking another. Pieces of veggie nugget have to be carefully doled out in between encouragement to sip water and eat chunks of juicy peach that help clear his mouth out. :) Veggie nuggets are often accompanied by peaches, green beans, sweet potato, squash, and/or homemade bread.
- After lunch is our chance to get out of the house and run errands! Sometimes that's Target or Walmart. Often it's JoAnn's. :) Once a week it's the grocery store. Other days we go to the library, a bookstore, or we go off in search of something new in this town we're still learning. A couple times a week we stay home and play, clean around the house, sit out in our backyard, etc.
- After our errands, we try to save a little time to play before napping. Asa usually goes down at 3 or 3:30 for his afternoon nap--nursing, a song, and then in bed. This nap usually lasts an hour and a half, so he wakes between 4:30 and 5. The afternoon nap is when I try to get dinner started, work on craft projects, etc.
- When Asa wakes up in the afternoon, we hopefully have just a little time until Daddy gets home! Asa is always groggy and needs extra cuddles as he finishes waking from his nap. We often stay in his room, rock, and read several stories as he becomes more awake. Then he has a snack (he loves crackers and pretzels). We might put laundry away, we feed Sammy dog, we might walk a letter down to the outgoing mailbox. We usually try to straighten things up before Daddy gets home (cause, man, can Asa make a mess!). :)
- When Daddy gets home we all have dinner and then often all take Sammy for a walk. Asa LOOOVES this. We have actually had to cut back on always doing this because Asa expects it. When Matt is out of town, I have difficult juggling them both, so we don't take a long walk (which frustrates Asa). And in the bitter winter we know is coming, it will be ill-advised for Asa to tag along. So we are working on making this a sometimes activity instead of an all the time activity, unfortunately. :(
- Dinner is usually some mix and match of peaches, green beans, homemade bread, sweet potato, squash, veggie nugget, rice + spaghetti sauce (he likes spaghetti noodles, but he doesn't always swallow them easily, even when cut short) and we offer him a taste of what we're having whenever we can (he is still on a no dairy restriction, so that limits some of his tasting of our meals). He is great about drinking water during all of his meals. :) He loves his baby Camelbak!
- After Sammy's walk, Asa and Matt get some good time playing and being crazy boys together. :)
- When it's time for bed (he's usually IN bed between 7:30 and 8... it has slowly moved back as he talks a REALLLLLY long time in bed and I was wondering if he would fall asleep sooner if we played longer/harder.... it seems to not make much of a difference), we all go up to Asa's room. Matt entertains Asa with silly Daddy antics while I change his diaper and get his pjs on. Then we have a silly routine about Asa and Daddy turning off the light while I get comfy and ready for Asa in his chair. We're working on blowing kisses, so once Asa is settled with me he blows Daddy kisses (which he thinks is hilarious) before Matt leaves. Asa nurses while we listen to the sweet sounds of Sing Over Me. When he's done, I sing him 2-3 songs, pray, and put him in bed! He talks to himself (sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly) for at least 30 minutes, sometimes longer. But our new development is that he sleeps through the night now.
- He has a light sleeping phase sometime in the 11 o'clock hour when we hear him "squeaking" but he doesn't wake up all the way. That often happens again around 4, but unless he has a messy diaper at that point (not usually unless he's had sweet potatoes recently), he doesn't wake up all the way then either.
- As he was transitioning to sleeping through the night, there were some times he'd wake up all the way. We worked our way to me just comforting him and not nursing as it was obvious he wasn't hungry. I think he is night-weaned! After 14 months! Wow!
- Asa is walking! All the time! He always tries to walk first when letting go of whatever he's holding onto (he used to immediately drop and crawl unless you "made" him walk). He's walking over 50% of the time. What a difference a month makes! He has amazing balance and will often stop, stand still and look around, and then keep walking. He does still walk with his hands up in the air for balance which is oh so cute and funny. :)
- Asa is talking.... ALLL the time! Nonstop! He is a little chatterbox! He learns new words every week. It's amazing! I think it's part of why he talks so much at bedtime now--he's trying to hard to figure this talking thing out! He says: Hi, bye-bye, Dada (which means Dad and Dog), Sammy, see (as in "I want to see that") and sometimes see tha (see that), Mama (not usually, but I show up every now and then, the plight of a mommy who's home all the time so he has no reason to talk about me), all done, down (occasionally), he's tried to say fork, and he speaks gibberish alllll.daaaaay.looooong. I cannot wait to know what all those little Asa words mean--if only I had a translator! His latest sound combo he looooves making is oyoyoyloyloyloyloy. It's really cute. :)
- He has more teeth! Asa has 7 front teeth (lacking the bottom right--if you're looking at him) AND his first molar (bottom left). Thankfully, it showed up with relatively little fanfare! :)
- He can use a fork! Asa cannot get food ON the fork himself, but if you load it for him, he can pick it up off the tray and feed himself.
- He hugs things--people and stuffed animals in particular.
- Loves to wave bye-bye.
- Loves to play "moving man" and shove things all around the room. This includes walking behind his stroller or walking next to it (holding on).
- He still laughs when other people are laughing. :)
- He had his first haircut!
- He loves to be tickled!
- He knows how to get off the couch/his chair/his rocker.
- He knows how to climb up the stairs.
- He LOOOVES our cell phones.
- He LOOOVES Sammy's water bowl.
- He loves the spice rack in the kitchen..
- He loves to drive his cars everywhere--on the edge of the couch or table, all across the floor, with his whole hand or delicately with one finger.
- He loves touch and feel and lift the flap books.
- He has discovered the joy that is emptying a tissue box or unrolling a whole roll of toilet paper. :)
- He rides in a big boy carseat but still rear-facing for his safety.
- He loves to shake things.
- He wears a size 3 diaper and is starting to grow out of his 9 month sized clothes (he's outgrown 2 sizes since we moved here!).
- Our favorite gibberish sounds me makes are oyloyloyloy, joo-judge, and srah
- he is taking a multivitamin to boost his B12, which seems linked to his new sleeping habits (yea!)
- He tried locally grown, farmer's market peaches and liked them!
- He likes feeding himself green beans again (he stopped doing that for awhile)
- He has a belated 1 year check up the middle of September, so we'll let you know his stats then! No matter what, we knows he's in the 100th percentile for sweet. :)
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