One year old!

John is one!!! He had his 12-month check up today. He was 90th in height and head circumference and 25th weight.

Before going, I worried that his doctor would discourage nursing. Instead, he just encouraged me to continue offering food to John when I eat meals. He also told me his rule of them about "when children need to wean."

"If he's bringing friends home for drinks, it is probably time to wean."

Sounds good to me!

John enjoyed refried beans with hot sauce tonight! He also liked his birthday cake a lot!

I thought I'd let John explain how to eat a cheerio:

1. Pick up cheerio by its handle.
2. Bite off edible part (the half of the cheerio that isn't the handle).
3. Pile used handle in corner of highchair tray. (It also works to put it on the floor).
4. Pick up new cheerio and repeat.

John and I went to La Leche League today and picked up Laura's book recommendation, "Child of Mine," from the library.

We're leaving John with friends tonight so that we can attend a church dinner and social. We went to the same social last year, at the same restaurant, also the Friday before Valentine's Day. It seems so special to know the last restaurant we ate at before John was born.

And, for a smile...

I just did a google search for patterns. One link led to three pages of free patterns for women's dresses, baby clothes, men's pajamas, halloween costumes, and the like. I read the final pattern description as I waited for the "finished" picture to load:

* For beginners... (Adam's costume)
Instructions: sit into your most comfy recliner. Do nothing. Someone has already sewn this costume for you with great skill and love. In addition, the size always fits!

Can you guess what it is?

The PT fitted John's TOT Collar to him this morning. She said that his is probably the best fit she's done because he tolerated the collar very well so she could easily remove it to make minor adjustments. Most babies, she said, cry and fuss every time it is taken on or off, but John just continued to play with a set of gears. She clapped for him at the end. Nice job, John!

I've been considering how much structure I want in our life. We go to church with some families who raised their children with extreme levels of structure (one knows the Ezzos personally and we love them and their children, ages 16, 14, and 11). My mom was more of a "free spirit" who dislikes scheduling and structure but she is a strong supporter of the co-operative preschool movement. With this background, I'm undertaking a bit of mini-structure.

What I'm working on this week:

1. Confined play-time in a pack-n-play.
I sit right by John most of the time, but the main point of this is to make laundry more agreeable. We share laundry facilities with our neighbors and they've been upset recently because it takes me too long to do laundry. They work during the day so need the facilities at night and on weekends, but I don't like doing laundry while John naps because the noises wake him up. Thus, pack-n-play time seems like a good solution. The laundry facility is in the basement, very dirty, and has a low ceiling so taking John with me would be a huge hassle - I've tried it a lot and it is awful!

2. Slow And Steady, Get Me Ready
A book written by a kindergarten teacher, this has one activity per week for four or so years of life. This will likely be our family "pre-school." For the past five days, I've spent 5-10 minutes on the week's activity.

3. Consistent reading to John
I've got to do this right when he gets up or he gets squirrelly!

4. Playing a classical CD every day
I need to get some CDs of hymns and psalms! But Classics in the Park will do for now. I want John to be comfortable with traditional church music and to know that people have been singing songs of praise to God since before electric violins were invented!

John gnawed on a roasted carrot for about five minutes last night while Dan and I ate our dinner (which included roasted carrots). Unfortunately, I didn't quite roast the carrots long enough for John to be able to bite through one. Until last night's breakthrough, John usually put non-cheerios food on the ground, so gnawing is a step in the right direction.

We've had six visits to our house so far by potential buyers. Some weren't announced beforehand and for others I was given less than half an hour's notice, so we've started cleaning the house before Dan goes to work. It is such a blessing to start the day with a made-bed, a clean kitchen, and a picked-up living room! Wow! We knew someone was coming on Sunday while we were at church so we set the alarm clock 20 minutes early. What a blessing to come home to a sparkling clean house with open curtains after church!

I thought I'd post a picture of some recent experimentation in solids.

I didn't worry when I didn't have a bib handy the other day. John is usually quite a clean eater (likely because he doesn't eat much) but it looks like I should have worried. I soaked the shirt and it looks pretty good now.

John likes to have one toy in each hand while crawling. The stick with a ball at both ends was $.25 at a garage sale (and that included batteries). Dan spent the first day we had it figuring out what pattern of noises was made when it was hit against things. I have shown children that it makes noises when its acceleration changes, but have avoided showing them that hitting the stick against something is a good way to change its acceleration.

With the beautiful weather, we still got stuck with a respiratory bug! It's hard to have real estate agents showing the house while sick. Thankfully, no one came yesterday and I was able to make the bed before the agent got to the bedroom today.

John used a dictionary as a step to help him reach the books on the third shelf yesterday. He didn't seem bothered by climbing up and down it but he still wasn't able to take the third shelf books down (I've packed them in really tightly to make it as difficult as possible as long as possible). I put extra bubbles in his bath yesterday and he just went crazy for it.

Thanks for the encouragement about John and his preference for milk. I haven't been to a LLL meeting for a few months because of when I work from home. They've changed their meeting date recently and I should be able to go next week. (They'll probably laugh at me - the last time I went was when I was worried that John would wean himself completely at eight months!)