2020: Family Update!

Hello everyone, and happy New Year! I can't believe it's already February!

My poor blog has been quite neglected. I mostly blame Timothy dropping his morning nap. Two naps a day felt like quite a luxurious amount of time for me to accomplish things, but now that he's only taking an afternoon nap (that has been getting shorter and shorter lately) I try to spend that time doing cleaning/organizing tasks that are difficult to do when he's awake. He likes to help me with whatever I'm doing which is fantastic most of the time, but some tasks (like cleaning the bathroom for example) I don't feel comfortable letting him help, or his help would be too much of a hindrance (like folding clothes, he hasn't mastered folding yet and prefers to throw/scatter my neatly folded piles instead) to be worth trying.

The biggest news from 2019 is that we found out we'd have a new little ginger arriving in April! Timothy is very excited about his baby sister coming soon, and talks about "when baby all done growing in Mommy's tummy..." He's particularly excited to play cars with her and have her ride in the backseat of the car with him!

Timothy is quite a talker now. He remains very sweet and easy-going most of the time, but turning two has definitely brought out a new rebellious streak sometimes, so we are continuing to work on obedience even when he doesn't want to do what we say.  He has gotten a bit more picky about eating, but still eats pretty well most of the time! He is daytime potty trained, and often wakes up dry from naps/overnight even though we still use a diaper back-up while sleeping. He can even push down/pull up his own pants, although sometimes he doesn't like to do it himself.

He loves reading and singing, requests certain books and songs over and over and likes to march and dance to the Mickey Mouse theme song. He's still obsessed with anything car/truck, and has added to that an interest in other vehicles like trains, airplanes and rockets/space ships. Our neighborhood park is a lot of fun, he loves to walk there and play, "go down slides!" is his favorite part. We also enjoy story time at our library.

We switched to a toddler bed quite a while ago, and that went swimmingly, he still doesn't actually get out of bed until we come into the room to get him. He usually sleeps through the night from 7pm-8am. He also climbs into his carseat by himself now, which is great because I prefer to avoid lifting him (he weighs 28 pounds!) as much as possible.

Currently I'm 30 weeks pregnant with baby sister, and nesting is in full gear. We had to add a wall to our home so that our upstairs bonus/loft area could become a nursery. We contemplated some other solutions, but ultimately decided that Baby will need her own space for a bit, once she's ready to move out of our room, but before she'd be big enough to share a room with Timothy. I'm very excited to have the wall completed, and eager to get to painting and setting up the rest of the nursery!

Baby bump and Timothy on a walk! (He wanted to hold my hand, that's rare lately!)

I'm also trying to stock my freezer like I did before Timothy's arrival. I have a few meals already frozen, and I'm aiming for adding at least 2 per week until she gets here. I found some crockpot meals that I've been doubling, so I make one to eat now, and one to go in the freezer for after Baby arrives! We're really looking forward to meeting her, and I know Timothy is going to be one sweet, fantastic big brother!

Timothy Update: 16 Months Old!

Climbed up by himself!

Around 15 months, Timothy got the hang of walking! He had been working on it for a while, walking with anything he could push, holding our hands. He took his first few steps back and forth between us right after his birthday. He just gradually started taking more and more steps on his own until he was walking good distances. It took a while for him to figure out how to stand up without pulling himself to standing on something, but now he can stand up just by bracing his hands on the ground and straightening up, so I consider him to have mastered walking!

His favorite word is 'ball' and the "bum, bum" that I mentioned in his 12-month post has turned into "broom, broom!" with an added lip buzz and is definitely supposed to indicate car/truck sounds. "Uh-oh" is still very often used. He says "dada" and "mama" much more regularly now, and also says "bup!" when he wants to go up... up on the sofa, or to picked up. He created his own signs for 'up' and 'bump' which is really cute. He taps his head with his open hand for 'bump' and he uses it whenever he trips or falls, even if he didn't bump his head. He has also started saying "bye!" when he waves, which is so stinking cute! Especially since he says it like, "By-ee!" He also signs and says "potty" now, but he says it "pa-ee" which sounds a lot like "bye" so I'm really glad he also signs! That makes the difference so that I actually understand what he is communicating, versus really not being sure what he intended to say just based on the sounds. 

He is obsessed with books! (Not just for potty time. All the time.)

Although he can sign and say "potty" we are still working on him understanding to ask for the potty whenever he needs it. If I ask him "where does pee-pee (or poopy) go?" he points to the toilet and says "potty" so he definitely understands where it is supposed to go. He sometimes points to his diaper and says "uh-oh" when he has had a miss. He does ask for the potty sometimes and more often lately! We were out on our grocery shopping trip and he asked for the potty, so I got our travel potty out and set up in the back of the car, and he used it. Then again at our second grocery store stop he asked and used the travel potty. We've also gotten him some underwear, which is nice because it's easier to have a pottytunity just pulling down pants and underwear versus having to unsnap and snap up a cloth diaper every time.

Easter fun with cousin Edison!

He is usually very friendly with any interested strangers or talkative cashiers we encounter when we're out running errands. He smiles, waves, and sometimes even says "bye" when we're leaving! We try to encourage him to be friendly and outgoing.

We had tried taking him to parks a few times, but usually the swings were the only aspect he seemed to really enjoy. Lately he has started enjoying slides though, which is very convenient because our neighborhood playground has several slides, but no swings unfortunately. We have to drive to find swings.

Climbing stairs with Grandma

He has been very consistently sleeping through the night ever since his 1st birthday. Usually a solid 12 hours, sometimes even 13. Naps haven't been quite as nice, he's been sleeping less during the day and seems to be trying to drop the morning nap and just take afternoon naps.

He sleeps so well at night that he even slept through the middle-of-the-night lip sweeps we had to do after we had his lip tie revised. Thankfully, this revision was successful, unlike the one we had done when he was 1 week old. The dentist also confirmed that he actually appears to be missing tooth #8 (which we were waiting and waiting for...) since teeth numbers 9-16 have all now erupted and there is still no sign of #8. I'm missing my two adult central incisors, so I wouldn't have been surprised if he had been missing some adult teeth down the road, but I had my central incisor baby teeth, so I wasn't expecting him to be missing any baby teeth. The one he is missing is also a lateral incisor, so I'm not sure if he actually inherited that from me or not. 

So proud of himself! 

Helping is extremely fun and exciting for him, so we have been trying to encourage that. He still loves helping with laundry. He also helps fill the bird feeders, and is always thrilled to notice birds outside. Matt built him a learning tower (Pinterest IKEA step stool hack) for the kitchen, so now he's learning to sort silverware into the drawer. He's also figured out how to operate light switches, and is convinced that ceiling fans should *always* be on. 

Playing with measuring cups.

(The learning tower addition hasn't been painted yet here)

Climbed into the chair by himself too.

I mentioned in the previous post that I was really hoping his hair would become curly, and it definitely has! He has really adorable curls now, and though sometimes I am afraid it's getting a little too long, I really can't bring myself to cut it yet. Sometimes when he's tossing and turning he will wake up from a nap with a matted mess on the back of his head, so I know it'll be too long soon, but when I do cut it, I will definitely just do a little trim and not cut off all the curls!

He's getting more talkative, opinionated, busy and energetic! He's still very sweet and cheerful most of the time too, though. I can't believe he's getting so big! We love our sweet little guy. It's so fun and amazing seeing how fast he's growing and how smart he is.

Timothy's Twelfth Month!

My goodness, I can't believe my baby is a year old. He's so big, smart and has so much personality. This has been such a fun year watching him grow. We're so blessed!

We're STILL waiting on that 8th tooth, but I can see his 1-year molars bulging in his gums and getting ready to break through, so maybe they're going to come first. His tooth emergence pattern has really been odd!

He was saying "uh oh" quite a bit earlier this month, but it didn't seem to be necessarily in response to an accident, like something falling, so I wasn't sure that it wasn't just a sound effect. Now he's obsessed with saying "bum bum" and if that's supposed to mean something, I'm sure I haven't figured it out. But, I am convinced that he says "ball" intentionally! He held up his ball to me and said it so clearly, I was amazed. He seems to be trying to talk. We're still working on "Mama" and "Dada" though, which are the words we are probably most eager for him to say!

Sharing french fries!

Signing he has added "all done" and "ceiling fan" to his repertoire. He also loves waving now, and does it at our request almost every time we ask. I think his waving is really adorable, he so gently flaps his hand up and down. A couple of mornings he was having his morning milk in the recliner downstairs, and he kept sitting up to wave across the room at Daddy who was finishing up breakfast in our open kitchen.

Timothy has mastered the straw spout for his sippy cup, which is great because now he can help himself to water. He's also become obsessed with sticking his tongue out, and showing us his mouthful of food when he's in the middle of chewing. I'm not sure where he picked up these manners! Good thing he's so cute that it outweighs the grossness. For now...

His hair is starting to curl a bit in the back sometimes, and I'm super excited about that! I had curls when I was little, and Matt's hair is curly, so I'm hoping Timothy will have curly hair, at least for a little while.

Unfortunately, the 12-month sleep regression is here, and he has been waking up once, sometimes even twice a night occasionally! He doesn't wake up every night though, and the past 4 nights he's given us undisturbed sleep, which was the best Christmas present we could have asked!

Loves closing (and opening) doors of all shapes and sizes. When he first started doing this I was worried he would smash his fingers, but he is very careful when he pushes large doors shut. When he goes in our bathroom to take his bath, he likes to close the bathroom door behind himself, and Matt jokes that he needs privacy... even though both of us are in the bathroom, and there's no one else in the house! 

He's still working hard on walking, and loves walking with anything he can find to push (since we don't have an actual walker toy for him) like our bar stools or his high chair. The high chair legs are rather wide, so his has trouble getting far before he gets stuck on something, but the bar stools work pretty well. And then, of course, he loves whenever anyone will hold his hands and help him walk!

Giving Daddy kisses

Laundry is Timothy's new favorite thing to help with, and I'm thrilled that he's already "helping" with chores! He will help throw clothes in the washer, help toss clothes in the dryer, push the button to turn the dryer on, and pull dry clothes out of the dryer. It's pretty cute!

This month being the Christmas season gave us lots of fun outings, plus a surprise first snow of the winter! 

Aunt Deborah made the trip down from VA to give Timothy and Edison some very fun vintage toys, and we had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas together!

Christmas Eve with the Hargett side, we had the special treat of cousins coming down all the way from Michigan! Little Elsie is a few months younger than Timothy, and she gave him several kisses, and just generally liked hanging out with him. So cute!

Then we enjoyed Christmas morning with the Bass side and Timothy and Edison had lots of fun sharing each other's toys. The most exciting Christmas present was the news that Edison is going to be a big brother, and Timothy will have a new little cousin in July!

Thanks for following along with Timothy's first year! Now that he's a year old, I'm planning to stop trying to do monthly posts, but hope to still make updates occasionally... like whenever he decides to start walking!