12 Months and Not a Baby!

So I already wrote a short book about the birthday we celebrated here last week. But now I'm finally writing about the Birthday Boy!

We had Tyler's 12 month check-up last Tuesday. He was pretty good for it! They had to do a little finger poke to check his iron and check for lead. I was ready to cry when she was getting ready for it because I know that hurts! But my little man didn't even flinch. He just watched with a very curious look on his face. He started to get a little annoyed when it took awhile to get the blood they needed. But he didn't care at all about the poke. He is much tougher than his Mama!

He is 19 lbs, 4 oz (5th percentile), and 29 inches tall (60th percentile).  I love Tyler's doctor. We really didn't know how to choose one when he was born. But the doctor who was on rounds in the hospital seemed really great so we stuck with her. She always lets him touch anything she is going to use on him. He gets to touch her light and her stethoscope so it doesn't usually bother him when she starts the check-up. Not all doctors are like that! When we went in for a sick visit the doctor we saw was abrupt and not nice at all, but that's a story for another day. :-)  Anyway, this time she let him walk around the room playing with her tools while she talked to me. It was pretty funny watching him walk around the room in just his diaper, with a stethoscope as long as he is! He pretty much acted like he owned that room.

We've had a lot of favorite things with Tyler this month! I have loved every single stage he's gone though, but they just keep getting better. In the past few months it's been fun watching his little personality take shape. And one thing is for sure. He is funny! He loves to make people laugh. His sense of humor is so fun. This past week he learned to make faces and he has been experimenting with them constantly. He's made fish faces for months, but now he furrows his little brow and looks confused, or he looks at us with a hilarious face that I can't describe, but it pretty much says, "You are crazy."

I've sat aiming my camera at him, trying to catch some of these faces and I haven't gotten any yet. But I did almost get his cheeseball smile. I just missed the part where he squeezes his eyes shut as tight as he can.

He also learned to clean and he loves it. Actually he's been spending pretty big chunks of his day "cleaning" our house. These are the things I love most. Watching him learn things on his own, without us teaching him. We definitely never taught him to wipe everything clean. But he does it with anything he can find. He finds his wash cloths and cleans. He pulls our hand towels off the stove and cleans. He emptied a kleenex box and cleaned with all of them. I have caught him wiping clean the floor, his high chair, his bike, his toy box, his diaper champ, the coffee table, the windows, the walls, his carseat, and even the table, booth and walls at restaurants.

His bike has never been outside, so I'm not sure how it got dirty, but apparently it was. :-) We love this. It is cute and funny every single time. And it is probably getting to the triple digits for the number of cleaning projects he has taken on in the last week.

Besides cleaning, he loves to brush his teeth. Well, I guess that's cleaning too. We have a very clean child. He also has been spending a lot of time just figuring things out. Trying to put lids on things, or trying to learn how to make the water come on. He is definitely his father's child. He would rather figure out how something works than enjoy the cool things it does.

And he LOVES his Daddy. It is heart melting, really. He has been crying when Carl leaves for work the last couple mornings. He even made him late for work one day because when Carl said goodbye, Tyler got a book and handed it to him, signing "please". Of course Carl couldn't say no to that. :-)And he gets sooo excited when he hears the garage door open at the end of the day. He runs as fast he can across the house to the door and waits for Carl to come in. Precious.

Tyler, it has been the fastest and most exciting year of our lives. You are our adventure finding, thrill seeking, lovable, sweet and funny little ball of energy. You are our constant source of entertainment and our little love bug. You make us laugh and you fill our hearts with joy. We race to be the first to go in your room and get you in the mornings and we can't go to bed at night without going into your room to check on you and tell you we love you one more time. You are such a blessing to us and we love you so much!