Ryan - Month 12

Before we get to the big one year post, a recap of fun things Ryan did and learned in his final month of being zero years old:

• Ryan got an Elmo book for Valentine's Day that had a cute little poem/story.  The story ends by asking "Will you be Elmo's Valentine?  Can Elmo have a kiss?"  And wouldn't you know it, but that furry red monster was enticing enough to teach our child to give sweet, real (not open-mouth-baby-style) kisses with sound and all!  So whenever we wanted a smooch, we would just say that line and he would smile and give a kiss.  Precious :)

Sweet baby in blue

• The sweetness continued in Ryan's new desire to "help" me with certain chores around the house.  His favorite is to switch around the laundry from the washer to the dryer for me.  I hand him the items and he expertly tosses them into the dryer.  To start with, he would get bored after 4-5 items, but now he will switch over a whole load for me!  Then the reward is getting to watch the dryer start tumbling the clothes.  He also started helping to throw things away, particularly diapers.  After a change, I hand him the rolled up dipe and he will toss it into the Diaper Genie and beam with pride.  He is such my little helper!

Chowing down on some breakfast

• I had been trying for a while to encourage Ry to clap after exciting things happened.  It clicked for him this month and now he is a clapping maniac!  Any time we cheer or start clapping, he will break out in a smile and join in on the clapping fun.  Sometimes if he does something he deems worthy of praise, he will start the clapping himself and try to get us to hop in.  

He loves this picture of himself...

• In the milestone department, we had a lot of HUGE developments this month:
• He has been toying with standing without holding on to anything.  Usually only for quick moments as he moves from couch to ottoman or toy to toy, but then he will get distracted by something and just be standing on his own for a full 30 seconds before he realizes what he's doing and sits down.  
• And while he's up standing, he might as well take a few steps, right?!  Matt was leaving for Yuma the week of Ryan's birthday and was getting worried that he might miss the first steps.  He came into the play room and sat down with a mug of coffee before leaving for his trip.  I jokingly said to Ry, "I bet if you walk to Daddy, he'll give you some of that coffee."  Did I mention our son loves coffee?  He will do anything to get his hands on our drinks - hot or cold.  As soon as I said that, he surprised us both by letting go of the toy he was playing with and taking two tentative, wobbly steps towards Matt!!  We were all so happy that Matt not only got to see the first official steps, but they were for him (or coffee)!
• The biggest life-changer of a milestone for me was that Ryan suddenly decided that he was cool with sleeping through the night!  We put him down between 7:30 and 8 now, and don't hear a peep from him until 6 the next morning.  I kept thinking it was a fluke and not a trend, but we are going on about a month now of all-night sleeping.  And it is incredible what an uninterrupted night of sleep is doing for both of us.  We both have more energy, more patience, and just in general feel better.  It is glorious.  I am so thankful for this development.  And now I truly look forward to our time right before bed and first thing in the morning since I miss seeing him in the middle of the night now!

Family story time

At the park in our PJ's on Ryan's birthday morning

Birthday trip to the zoo

Opening gifts with help from Jordan

So that's it.  12 months of Ryan and all of the glorious things he has been doing and learning.  I'll post the birthday blog and year-in-review soon, but I think that this will be it for the monthly updates.  Moving forward, we'll just blog about the big things as they happen.