Friday, May 31, 2013

One Year Old and Going Strong

Will had his one year check up a couple of weeks ago. He is now 22.1 pounds (50th percentile) and 31.5 inches long (95th percentile). So he's still destined to be a basketball player (Graham is proud), and he's finally packing on some weight to go with his height. Hooray!



The doctor also commented on how long his feet are. Apparently, size 5 shoes (which are almost too small) are not average for his age.

I had to laugh when the doctor, after watching Will cruise around the examination room and squirm out of my arms repeatedly while we talked, commented how busy Will is. I get that a lot, but when the doctor who sees countless babies every week singles yours out as being "really active", you know you're in trouble. Although, I guess it's kind of normal to me now. I don't know what it's like to have a child who will sit quietly on my lap and play with a toy. Or who will snuggle up with me in the rocking chair and let me read him books. Or who will play on the floor with toys, even with me, for more than 30 seconds before he decides to go off exploring the world a bit more. I'm not complaining. I love my little Magellan. I just think it's interesting that I can see his personality so strongly. I wonder how those tendencies will manifest themselves as he gets older.

At one year, here are some of Will's favorite activities:

Flipping light switches: He has figured out that when you flip them up and down, the lights go on and off, which is fascinating to him. Except, that sometimes he forgets that you have to switch between up and down, and he'll just keep trying to push it the same direction over and over and can't see why nothing is happening.

Moving things from one bucket to another: Up until recently, Will just loved to dump everything out onto the floor and make as big a mess as possible, but he has recently developed the skill of putting things IN rather than just taking them OUT. He loves to throw blocks into their storage bucket (I think he likes the sound it makes), and he also regularly puts them into the bed of his new dump truck before pushing it around the room. Hooray for baby steps toward learning to clean up!



Making friends: Will LOVES other kids. Whenever we're on walks or out shopping, if he sees another young child, he starts trying to get their attention by yelling. He's not angry; they're just short bursts of sound, like he's saying, "Hey! Look over here! Wanna be friends?" It's really cute.

Waving: He's finally getting more consistent at waving to people. I love watching him flap his hand around with that little grin on his face.

Playing outside, especially when dirt, sticks, and/or bark chips are involved: We've gotten outside and gone to the park recently, and Will is LOVING exploring a whole new part of the world. What is it that compels children to throw bark chips though? In any case, he doesn't seem to mind that we don't have grass yet at our house. In fact, grass kind of freaks him out. He's much happier sitting and digging in the dirt, tasting rocks.



Teasing his parents about walking: He's SO close! In the last two weeks he's made HUGE strides (couldn't resist) in taking steps. He WANTS to walk now, which is progress, as he was completely uninterested for awhile. He can totally walk, albeit awkwardly, but he's not confident enough to really go for it. He'll walk a few steps, sometimes as much as halfway across the room, and then he'll decide it's too slow and go back to crawling. He does, however, like to push chairs around the house now and use them as a makeshift walker. Any day, this kid is going to take off running, and I bet he'll never look back.


Playing in his favorite spot: Will has a favorite spot. It's completely random, but he plays there multiple times a day. It's the window ledge behind the back of the couch (See his spot in the picture above? It's right behind him). He often will climb up on the couch, crawl into his spot, bang some toys around and look out the window, and then kamikaze-style roll/slide down the couch cushions to get back down. It's pretty entertaining.

One is so much fun!

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