Officially a Toddler!

Our little man is officially a toddler! Hudson decided he was finally ready to start walking last week. He had been cruising since about 10 1/2 months, so I was beginning to wonder how much longer he was going to wait! He is quite proud of his new skill and spends much of his day working to perfect it.

The last couple weeks it seems like he has just taken off with his development. I had to write a whole list down the other day because there were so many new things he is doing that I wanted to remember.

New Words

I have a feeling that even though girls are typically more verbal, Hudson is going to be a very talkative child (just like his father!) It seems like he is saying new words almost every day! Some of them stick and he uses them frequently and others he just repeats for a little bit until the fun wears off. His favorite words right now are yucky (ack-ee), which he uses for anything he knows he's not supposed to touch, and uh oh (uh-oooh). He also has been saying bye-bye (ba-ba), tick tock, night night (nah-nah), kitty, and of course lots of mama and dada. I love hearing his little voice! It's adorable :)

Animal Noises

We have lots of books with animals in them that Hudson likes to read, so we are doing lots of animal sounds lately. The first one he picked up was for an elephant. He raises his arm and kind of squeals. I was pretty amazed when he started doing this while we were reading a book and he saw a picture of an elephant. He also likes to do monkey, where he says ah-ooh-ooh. Mike and I say ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh, so not sure how he got that one backwards. He also will occasionally make dog noises too, but you probably wouldn't recognize it. It took me awhile to realize he was consistently making the noise when we talked about doggies.

Body Parts

Hudson loves playing with his feet and will now point to them when you ask him where his toes are. He thinks it's so funny for some reason! I think he's pretty close to figuring out fingers/hands too because we are always asking where his hands are when putting on his shirt.

Mimicking

He is starting to figure out how objects are supposed to be used and one of his favorites is the phone. He would love to have mommy and daddy's phone, but I gave him an old cell phone of mine I still had stuffed in our desk drawer and it definitely suffices. He loves to "talk" on the phone and will hold just about anything shaped like a phone up to his ear and say hello. :) The other thing he started doing the other day was trying to comb his own hair. Up until then, the comb had mostly been a teething toy!

Emerging Toddlerhood

The other thing I've noticed lately is that my sweet innocent baby is starting to test his boundaries. It's really kind of interesting to watch his mind work, kind of like "Mom said not to touch the lamp, but maybe I can touch the bottom of the lamp, ok no, well maybe I can touch it with just my finger tip, ok no, well how about with my foot" and on and on. After a few times of this he usually does realize that mom is in charge because he will give a short cry and his best pouty face, and then move on to something else. Except when it's the toilet paper roll. That thing is absolutely irresistible.

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A Season of Reading

Mike and I decided about 2 (maybe 3?) years ago to get rid of our tv. Me having a secret ambition of being a hippie played somewhat of a role, but really the main factor was that we didn't have cable. Once the switch to digital tv happened, we could not get anything to come in without cable except occasional PBS (which I did love my Antiques Roadshow!) So we found ourselves watching all our regular shows online on a relatively small computer screen, while our large tv sat in a corner, barely used. We decided to sell the tv and ended up buying an extra large computer monitor (can't remember the size, but the biggest we could find).

I have to say that while there are occasional times I miss the tv, I really enjoy not having one. I find that I don't care to watch tv as often as I did before. I feel tied down by regular shows, so I just don't start new ones. But as I've cut back on tv, it's left some time voids to fill. Obviously being a mom helped to fill a lot of that up, but I need something to do to relax and unwind. The internet tends to serve that purpose, but I find that the more time I spend online, the more discontent I feel. I'm not sure exactly why, because I try to read interesting and educational things, but still, I feel kind of yucky after too much time on the computer. So lately, I've been really trying to read books in my free time instead. I got several books for Christmas, which I've already made a pretty good dent in, but what I am most excited about is that I got a Kindle Touch!!!

I've been anti e-reader since I heard of them. I am a bibliophile and would love nothing more than to just fill my home with shelf upon shelf of books and more books. Something like this would exist in my dream house:

I just love owning a physical book, being able to touch and smell the pages, browsing the titles on a bookshelf. Compared to the romanticized view of a floor to ceiling library, an e-reader just seemed cold and sterile.

But then, my brother and my Dad both got Kindles. The more I started to learn, the more interesting they became- free books (!), easily borrowed books from the library (!), having thousands of titles at your fingertips at a moments notice (!) Plus, while my fantasy may be to have a room at home that is a designated library with floor to ceiling books, old leather chairs, and a ladder, my reality is cheap chip board bookshelves in the basement. So for now, the Kindle could be my space-saving savior! I figured I would read the books I got for Christmas throughout the year this year, and then maybe put a Kindle on my wishlist for next year. But then for Christmas, Mike's parents gave me a gift card to Amazon that I was able to use for a Kindle touch! I just got it in the mail today, but I already have 20 books on it (all free) that are ready for me to read! I am planning to make my own cover using an old hardcover book (of course!) to give it more of a book feel. Just need to head to Goodwill or the antique stores to find the perfect one. I'm definitely not ready to give up old fashioned books, but I really think I'm going to like my Kindle!

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Happy 2012!!

Surprise, surprise, I did not keep up my goal of once per month blog posting. I just haven't been feeling the writing bug, so it's been too hard to try to sit down and write something out. But part of why I like having a personal blog is to have something to look back on and remember how life was at a particular time. So here we go! No New Year's resolution for me, we'll just see how things go :)

Hudson is now a 1 year old!! It truly is amazing how quickly his first year went by and also to see how much he has changed in that year! He is such a joy to us. I can't imagine our life without him! At his one year check up he measured 32 inches (97th percentile), and 24 lbs 2 oz (65th percentile). He's still quite tall, but he's definitely filled out a little too, and is now more proportional than he was his first 6 months. I love seeing him in just his diaper, because he has the cutest little baby gut! At the beginning of December, Hudson started to stand up on his own without pulling up on anything, so I thought for sure he'd be taking some steps by the end of the month. However, he has plans of his own, and currently those plans do not include walking! He loves to stand up on his own and gets a huge, proud smile on his face every time he does, but as soon as Mike or I try to hold out our hands to have him take a step he drops straight to his knees. He will walk around the living room some with a push walker or holding hands, but even that he is not too crazy about. His newest trick has been climbing and he is starting to try to climb out of the bath, up stairs, on top of boxes, etc.

Hudson had his first dentist appointment last week which went pretty well. He didn't mind having his teeth brushed, but was a little freaked out by Dr. Hart in his mask. We found out he has a maxillary lip frenum attachment, which means his upper lip attaches to his gumline really low, and actually goes between his two front teeth. I was surprised I had never noticed before. It's not a big deal right now, just means he'll have a gap between his front teeth, but we may have to get it "clipped" when his adult teeth come in so the gap can close with his permanent teeth. Apparently, some kids break the attachment before that happens, so I'll have to remember that if Hudson ever falls and has a lot of blood coming from his mouth! Hudson has 4 teeth on top and 3 1/2 on bottom- the 4th one just broke through a couple days ago.

It is so fun to start to hear his voice now. He is quite talkative, babbling all the time, and he has really started to say some words, which kind of surprised me at this age. He says mama, dada, kitty, uh-oh, doggy (gog-gy), night-night (nigh-nigh), all done (ah duh), and up (uh). He also repeats lots of other words and sounds, but doesn't necessarily use them on his own.

Hudson really enjoys listening to music and playing music. He got a wooden music table for his birthday that he loves banging on, and occasionally I strap him into his booster seat, and let him sit and bang on the piano. One of his favorite activities is to push the buttons on the stereo and turn the dial to turn up the music. Every time he turns it on, he immediately starts dancing to the music- it is so adorable.

In other McCain news- We are completely finished with our Coralville Capanna location. We moved the retail part up to North Liberty last spring, but still ran the wholesale coffee roasting out of Coralville. We were very glad to see that lease come to an end in December, and Mike got the roaster all moved up to a new warehouse location in North Liberty. It is a much better fit for us, as it was just too difficult to run both wholesale and retail from one location, and now we have a much better deal on rent for the wholesale spot. While I have missed the snow this year, especially at Christmas, the mild winter has been amazing for business. Gelato sales are definitely up for this time of year, and we can't complain about that!

That's all for now! Hope everyone is off to a great start to the New Year!

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October Update

I'm aiming to keep my promise of at least one post a month, so here we go!

Hudson is just growing and changing so much right now, it's crazy. About a week after my last post, Hudson officially took off with his army crawl. It was such a relief for both of us, as he was much happier being able to get where he wants to go. He quickly progressed to pushing up to sit on his own, and then pulling to stand. He is now just starting to cruise the furniture, and he is doing a true hands and knees crawl. It's so fun to see him learn all these new things, and also to realize that he is going to be walking very soon.

About a month ago, Hudson started at a new daycare. It was a frustrating search, but we found an in-home setting for him that we are really loving. His babysitter, Rachel, is a stay-at-home mom to her little girl who just turned 1 a couple weeks ago. I think Hudson is having a lot of fun there. While he's always super excited to see me when I pick him up, he always seems to be having a good time playing too. It is a blessing to have a good situation, so that I don't have to worry about him while I'm at work 2 1/2 days a week.

Hudson picked up a new trick at daycare as you'll see in the video below.

If you watch closely, you'll also notice his other new trick- shaking his head no! I can't quite figure out if he understands what he's saying or not. He definitely seems to use it at times when it's appropriate, like when he doesn't want to eat something, or he doesn't want to stop doing whatever he's doing, but he also does it at random times too. If you ask him a question, there's a good chance he'll shake his head no, no matter what you ask! :)

Another development as of late is his two front teeth! He's also working on two more on the top, so that will make a total of 6 once those come through. Unfortunately, the teething seems to have really thrown a wrench into his sleeping habits. He's always been a decent sleeper and was down to waking only once a night to nurse (and even slept all the way through right before his 9 month Dr's appt), but the last couple weeks he's been having a hard time being laid down after being rocked to sleep and has been waking frequently, even as often as every hour! Clearly, that does not work well for anybody. I think all the motor skills development has messed with his sleep as well. He often wakes up and starts crawling or pulling to stand, even though his eyes are closed and he settles down as soon as I pick him up. Anyway, we decided to start sleep training. I am not comfortable with cry-it-out methods, so we've been trying some more gentle approaches, and I'm happy to say we've seen progress. He was able to fall asleep in his crib tonight without rocking or nursing to sleep! He did require some singing and patting on the back from mom, and it took about 35 minutes, but we're taking baby steps at least!

Ok, well for the rest of the update, I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the last month! :)

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