13 months old

My sweet baby is 13 months old. He is doing more and more big boy things every day. He is picking up more signs all the time (up to 12 now including cookie and banana. His favorite one is please since it seems to be a catch all for I want that!) and is trying to say a few words. They sound nothing like the real words but we know he is trying to say please, bird and yogurt. Pretty sure banana is in the mix too. He has been pretty sick for the past couple of weeks. All 3 of us were down for the count this weekend. Starting to feel a little better but still not quite right.

The biggest news around here is Nathan's new found love of sleeping at night. For the last year, I have been getting up with him when he wakes. Usually every 3-4 hours. We nurse and he goes back to bed. Some nights are harder than others but it has been our new normal and we worked through it. I am totally opposed shutting the door and not returning for 10-12 hours no matter how much he cries. Just isn't part of who I am as a person or parent. I do not expect babies to sleep more than a few hours in a row and feel it is my job as a parent to be there at night as well as during the day. I really wasn't sure how we were going to deal with helping him to sleep longer periods but I knew it would come eventually. Then one night, it did. All on his own. I woke up at 3:30 am and realized I never heard him wake up. I turned up the monitor and heard him moving in bed so I knew he was ok. And that was that. For the past 2 weeks, he has been sleeping like a rock star. A couple nights he has gotten up once but after a quick nurse, he was back out. Last night was 12 hours with no wake ups. Holy smokes. Who knew that was possible? haha The only thing that changed was him wearing his teething necklace.

Ah the teething necklace. I have been reading about them for quite some time but was not sure what to make of it. I thought that as long as our beloved teething tablets were working, we would be ok. Then all hell broke loose. He was drooling, which he NEVER did, chewing on his fists, being crankier than ever and just overall not being his happy self. So I though, why not? Can't hurt, right? We let him wear it during the day for a week or so and it seemed to be making a difference. I wasn't sure if it was because one of the teeth actually cut or the necklace. Then I put it on him before bed. Low and behold the child slept. and slept. and slept. Since then, we definitely think it is the necklace that is helping him. Even daycare thinks he is less fussy about the teeth. We can see more coming in but at this point with the other teeth, he was a wreck. We showed the pediatrician at our last visit and she thought it was pretty nifty too. Well, on Friday the pedi called to ask more about the necklace! I was floored. She said she had a mom who was at her wits end and had tried everything for her little guy. The only relief came when the pressed on his gums but you can't do that 24.7. I told her what I knew and had been experiencing with Nathan. Then I told her to feel free to have the mom call me. 3 minutes later I got a call from the mom and we talked for a while. So many amazing moms have helped me this past year so if I can give a tiny part of that help to another mom, I was glad to. I sure hope this helps her little one. Like my friend Jenn says, "teething is the devil"!

This weekend, since we were stuck in the sick ward, we watched a lot of football. I have my own fantasy team so I actually tried to pay attention. The best part was teaching Nathan to do "touchdown"! SO CUTE! He kept walking up to the fireplace glass and watching himself. Then he turns to us and claps. I love this kid.