Standing and walking practice

It was just two days ago I was telling everyone that Theo was on a hiatus from practicing standing and walking - too busy being willful about other things! Well, as you can see from this evening's collection of photos and video, he's back at it, and having a darn good time, too.

A visit with Mae and other fun

Theo got to visit with his friend Mae, 8 weeks his senior yesterday. Theo plays but is always very solemn until he's been where ever he's visiting for at least a half hour. My batteries ran out before I could capture the smiles later on in the visit. A highlight: Mae fed Theo crackers.

Plus more weekend fun.

Big red ball

Vocabulary developments

Breaking news: Theo's mystery word, at times interpreted as "its a good, its cool, icicle, etc", has been deciphered. Or at least its now morphed into a real word: CIRCLE! Theo has a favorite shape from the shape sorter, his blue circle, and this morning he kept dropping it into the laundry bin for me to retrieve. I asked, would you like me to get your circle for you? And Theo responded, "circle"! I was like, oh my, that's your word! Its circle!

In other vocabulary news, yesterday Theo said cracker twice, and dog. He also has a word for cat which involves a very high-pitched sound that is either "meow" or "kitty". He said it repeatedly while playing with a plastic toy cat when asked "what is that"?

Here he is showing off his full compliment of 10 teeth. Another first this morning, Theo posed for the camera by putting forth a big cheesy grin pointed directly at the lens.

We got a porch swing for Christmas from Grandpa Steve and Grandma Linda. Theo thinks its super fun to be able to swing sitting next to mommy on our very own porch!

Real hugs

Theo gives real hugs now sometimes when I pick him up and carry him. He puts his head on my shoulder, wraps his arms around me, and has even given me little pats when he does this. It is nice such a wonderful development is coming on the heels of Theo developing his will in new and tantrum-like ways. I mean, these days if Theo wants to, say, climb the stairs, and Mom or Dad aren't willing to climb with him, you get the full crying, back-arching, go limp treatment. So its nice he's learning to be such a sweetie at the same time!

A Day at the Zoo

The whole family went to the zoo this morning and we just had the best time. Theo is old enough now to be able to recognize animals at a distance and enjoy the zoo. It was so fun to watch him realize what he was seeing and get excited and point at the animals. The first ones we saw were mountain goats, that's what he's pointing to in the second picture. The orangutans were the best, though, they were up close to a window that was low enough for Theo to stand at, so he could even interact with them, seeming to try and kiss one a couple of times.

A walk in the park

We've been thinking part of the reason Theo hasn't practiced walking more is because he's just not that motivated. He gets around great via crawling, so why bother?

Theo is pretty familiar with not being allowed to crawl on trails, so today when he discovered he is allowed to locomote via walking out on a trail at the Rhododendron gardens, suddenly he was super motivated to walk, and walked more than he has to date. By the way, the sound of the exuberant happy pigeon towards the end of the video is not a bird, its Theo.

Milestones: first birthday check-up

At one year, Theo weighs in at 21 pounds, only the 25th percentile, but at a whopping 31.5 inches, he's in the 90th percentile for height! Long and lean! An athlete's body perhaps, and certainly likely to be like more like Matt and I's 6 ft tall brothers than us in height. He's had 8 teeth for weeks, and now has two lower molars coming in, one on each side. Poor kid, they starting coming in on his birthday weekend, and boy do they look like they hurt! He says about 5 words, mama, dada, this, that, and something resembling "icicle" or "its a good" or something, but he clearly thinks its a word. He waves goodbye now, too, and high-fives, gives kisses, claps, and points at everything. He also uses pointing, yelling, and crying to get what he wants, and is become more and more insistent about said desires! He pushes toys around the house, walking behind them, and every day he goes farther walking by holding my hands. Of course he's still a speed demon when it comes to crawling. He can stand for several seconds at a time and loves stand and then to fall backwards onto his bottom on the couch over and over again, in peels of laughter. One of the funniest things he does is laugh big ha-ha-ha's in response to grown ups around him laughing. He's definitely a social kid. The first time he waved goodbye to me as I was leaving for work was last Thursday, and it just made my day.

First Birthday

Wow. What can we say. Theo is 1. It has been an incredible year. All weekend Matt and I kept flashing back to what we were doing one year ago. We had great fun at Theo's party, though Theo was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing, and spent the first part of the party quietly hanging out on the couch with Grandpa Steve and Grandma Linda. He came out of his shell during the whole "happy birthday" part which he thought was awesome, and then again at present opening time, getting on the floor and digging in to the paper-tearing and especially enjoys his new "Teach and Touch Turtle." During the last half hour he played with Henry who was quietly sitting and playing with toys at the toy box, and Theo thought, this is just my speed! After everyone left, Theo spent about a half hour crawling in circles blowing off excess energy before he finally succumbed to a nap. We think he had a pretty good time watching the festivities, but the only thing he seemed to like about the cake was everyone singing to him, and being presented with the cake and candles. Other than touching it, he wasn't interested in eating it at all, despite our efforts, so we just ended up giving him some yogurt, his favorite food!