12 Months

Another one of the many, many hazzards of having your birthday in the middle of the holidays is not getting your proper birthday tribute on time. Shame shame! I know Charlie, nor my faithful faithful readers are all that concerned. But, like I've said before, I don't journal, so....

One year! One year and it feels like one week and 10 years all at the same time. I think pretty much every parent looks back over their pictures at this point and wonders, 'how did this tiny baby get from looking like this...'

'To looking so big, like this..."Fortunately, my mom asked me to take this series of pictures for her, since she's on a mission far away so she could see his growth, and so now I can see how it all happened. (I took an 8 month picture, but alas, can't find it anywhere, it must have been deleted inadvertently. I'm so sad, cuz now that it's all done, I think it's kinda cool. I sorta wish I'd spent more time on the pics, and shot them all exactly the same and stuff. But you can't imagine when you're staring at your kid all day that you'll ever have a hard time remembering them how they are!)

Seriously? 12 Months!

• Waves hi! He learned this about 10 months or so and absolutely LOVED it. As soon as he figured it out and figured out how much of a reaction he could get from total strangers he was just obsessed with waving. He had the one handed version and the two handed version, and it was such a crack up. He would wave at EVERYONE when we were at the store or anywhere. He was always so pleased with himself when they waved back.
• Started saying 'Hi'. It was a "Hi" wave combo for awhile. Lately he has dropped the wave a lot, but he says "Hi" a lot to people. When he sees grandma on Skype, "Hi". When he sees you in the morning, "Hi". He doesn't understand "Bye" however, he just wants to do "Hi" again, especially if people are waving.

• Learned at thanksgiving that he looooooves pizza. Ate almost a whole slice himself. Also loves Chili, fruit, cottage cheese, and anything sweet!
  
• Sometimes we call him our German baby, because Charlie has this fluent babble that has all these really harsh consonants in it, that sounds like he's going off in German. "Ideekanaofkpt!"
• Sleeps through the night again, phew! Charlie had been a pretty darn good sleeper, all things considered right from the very beginning. However, at about 9 mths he went through a phase where he woke up, ALL THE TIME... By about 11 months he was waking up 6+ times a night at points. Finally we worked out something to help him sleep (or maybe the phase just passed, haha, who knows?). Now he's back to 11-12 hour nights, and typically doesn't wake up. Niiice.
• Got his 6th tooth just a week or so before his first birthday!

• Became my picky little eater, BOO! Hoping this one's a phase.
  
• Learned to walk! After about 11 months we were interested to see if he would walk, so we'd put him between us and try to get him to take steps, he'd take about one. Only as long as it took to get to his hands and knees to crawl away from us and whatever nonsense we were up to. So we figured he was really uninterested. But about two weeks before his first birthday he took a few steps, about a week later he was very wabbley walking, and by his first birthday he was doing pretty well and was walking almost all the time!

• Charlie is king of the courtesy laugh. If other people are laughing he'll join in as if he's in on the joke. Including if people are laughing on TV, or if mom and dad are laughing AT the TV.
• Growls like a monster.
• Loves to play "monster chase", he crawls as fast as he can, but just falls on his face laughing after a few feet.
• When you ask Charlie where his nose is, he will grab YOUR finger and use it to point to his nose. Something's not totally computing there. Haha.
• Loves to sing songs. Well he likes you to sing to him. It will keep him calm in the car or during a diaper change if you'll sing him some of his favorite songs.
• Has the funniest dance moves. Looks like a little traditional indian war dance.
• Loves to rock on his rocker. Crazy style.
• Likes to empty cupboards and really wants to play with the plunger.
  

WE LOVE YOU CHARLIE! BEST YEAR EVER, HANDS DOWN!!!