Life with a 1 year old

This past week has been full of firsts for Brody and our family. On Friday we took Brody for his 1 year check up. For all of you first time parents out there that have not yet had this appointment let us prepare you by telling you that this appointment is BY FAR the hardest one yet! Brody received 3 shots (MMR, Chicken Pox and Hepatitis A) and a finger poke for some blood testing. Poor little Brody cried bloody murder! It took Mommy a long time to get him to calm down and he was pretty upset on and off for the rest of the day! He does not cry much so when he does we know it is really hurting him and just breaks our hearts! Wish we could switch places with the little guy! They test for lead at this age and also test for the iron level in the blood. Both blood tests came back perfect, we are really happy about that, especially the iron level because that is what caused him to have jaundice when he was born. They like to see an iron level of 11 and Brody's was a 12.7 which is great! He weighs in at exactly 23 pounds which puts him in the 50-75% for weight. He kept fluctuating on the scale between just under 23 and right at 23 pounds because he was moving around. He is 29 inches long which puts him in the 25% for height. We don't pay too much attention to the percentiles, as long as the doctor tells us he is doing great that is all that matters! He is meeting all of his milestones right on time and continues to be a very healthy baby boy! We are starting to wean him off the bottle and have introduced him to whole milk this past week which he seems to like. We have been introducing a wide variety of "people/table food" over the past week and he is doing great! There does not seem to be anything that he doesn't like this far. Last night he tried chicken for the first time. A favorite so far seems to be spaghetti and we have also let him try pizza twice (once at his party and once this weekend) which he really likes as well. We have been mushing up real vegetables and fruit chunks and he likes those as well. He will pick up food off his tray and put it into his mouth on his own and also insists on using the spoon on his own which he is also doing well with. He also loves yogurt and applesauce. We just continue to expose him to a variety of new things!

Brody has spent the past week loving every minute of playing with all of his new toys. Mommy has been rotating them so he feels like he is playing with something new all the time. Favorites so far are his learning workbench, jack in the box, baseball set, art easel, anything that plays music and lights up and anything that has to do with "Little People". He loves the little people sets, putting the people into the school bus or airplane and carrying the little people around in his hand or in his mouth. He is also really enjoying his alphabet train that he got from Grandma and Grandpa, he can sit on it on his own and Mommy pushes it around. It helps to teach alphabet letters and he is always pushing the alphabet blocks to hear the different sounds. This week he has started to really take off walking with his walking toys on his town. Before we would have to help him and he would be really hesitant about walking but now he pulls himself up to the walking toy and takes off. The doctor says he should walk any day now. Truthfully we are in no hurry, we know he will walk when he is ready.

We want to congratulate our good friends the Luchsingers on selling their house and moving into a new one last past weekend. We got to see their new house over the weekend and Brody loved playing with his big buddy Brayden in all of their new space. We are so happy for them and can't wait to share many new memories with them there! :)

This weekend we will celebrate Brody's 2nd Easter. It is hard to think of last Easter being his first since he was barely 3 weeks old and such a little peanut. We are anxious to see how he reacts to the eggs. Most likely they will go right in his mouth! We will be celebrating with Daddy's family on Saturday and Mommy's on Sunday so it should be a great weekend! We are planning on taking Brody to church on Sunday, first time he will have gone since his baptism. We haven't taken him this winter with all the sickness going around. We are looking forward to getting out and enjoying the nice weather we will be having for the rest of the week, temperatures are to be near and in the 70's. Can't wait! Hope everyone is doing well and have a safe and Happy Easter!